Squirrels feast on…voles?

When undergraduate students came back from their fieldwork and told their advisors they saw California ground squirrels eating rodents, they were shocked. “No, I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” Sonja Wild, a co-lead on a long-term ground squirrel project, told the students. When she saw the video they took of the activity, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She only knew the squirrels (Otospermophilus beecheyi) to stuff their cheeks with nuts, seeds or grains. In a study published in the Journal of Ethology, Wild and her colleagues described their discovery with evidence from videos, photos and direct observations. They noted the squirrels competing and eating voles in June and July. This coincided with high vole sightings in the area recorded on iNaturalist. “The fact that California ground squirrels are behaviorally flexible and can respond to changes in food availability might help them persist in environments rapidly changing due to the presence of humans,” Wild said in a press release. 

Read the study in the Journal of Ethology.