[HN Gopher] Admit It, Squirrels Are Just Tree Rats
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Admit It, Squirrels Are Just Tree Rats
Author : pseudolus
Score : 49 points
Date : 2022-07-09 11:05 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| cgh wrote:
| Possibly unpopular fact: lots of people hunt and eat squirrels.
| So this is another way we define differences between otherwise
| similar animals: one is food, and the other is not.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_meat#Regionally
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| Squirrels around here are super annoying. They _love_ to play
| dodge wheel. I hate it because I don 't want puncture a tire
| because of one of those little shits.
|
| Edit: Relevant - http://toddmitchellbooks.com/twelve-things-
| about-squirrels-t...
| dmix wrote:
| The migration part is interesting:
|
| > Squirrels in North America used to migrate in massive
| numbers, following cycles of bountiful acorn harvests. When
| settlers first arrived in this country, they reported squirrels
| being so thick in the trees above during a migration that they
| nearly blocked out the sun. The best part -- squirrels could do
| most of the journey from the East coast to Indiana without
| touching the ground.
|
| > But as settlers started to clear the old growth oak forests,
| the great squirrel migrations became fragmented. Where
| squirrels had to cross fields, they were killed by coyotes,
| foxes, and other predators, including people who reported
| killing hundreds of squirrels (and getting three pennies a
| pelt). The last great squirrel migration was in 1968 in
| Wisconsin, when hundreds of thousands of squirrels were seen
| migrating (and dying on the highway and in lakes). One
| fisherman reported a wave of squirrels swimming toward his boat
| and nearly sinking it as they ran over him. Since then, this
| mass migration behavior has gone extinct.*
| adastra22 wrote:
| That makes me sad :(
|
| I wonder if the right wildlife corridors were setup would the
| migration patterns resume? Or is this part of squirrel
| culture and once eradicated is gone?
| samatman wrote:
| The right wildlife corridors would need to include the
| American Chestnut, which was their primary food.
| lumberjack24 wrote:
| Just like shrimps are sea cockroaches.
| sdiupIGPWEfh wrote:
| How many species are basically the same if you completely ignore
| differences in size, texture, color, and behavior? If you squint
| right, we're just apes in suits. It's almost like all those small
| differences add up to an outsize impact.
| kazinator wrote:
| Any two entities are the same, if you define equivalence in
| such a way that it ignores all their differences.
|
| "ABC" and "Abc" are the same, if we ignore case, and so it
| goes.
|
| You can't fix it with absolute equivalence, because absolute
| equivalence requires that some entity A is only equal to that
| same entity A, and no other entity; that is then inapplicable
| if we want to use equivalences for division into classes that
| have more than one member.
| cbozeman wrote:
| It's a little disconcerting just how chimpanzee-like some human
| beings look.
|
| I often wonder how _anyone_ could dispute out origin when you
| look at a chimpanzee then look at a human. The similarities are
| incredibly striking.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| we are apes in clothes, no need to squint!
| root_axis wrote:
| How many species are the same if you just ignore the qualities
| that distinguish them?
| dmix wrote:
| Cats also look very weird if you drench them in water. Much
| more rat-like. Same with owls, bears, etc.
| tarsinge wrote:
| I recommend looking up hairless bear too.
| dmix wrote:
| Yep, edit snipped me, I added that after posting comment.
| BillSims wrote:
| I cannot remember who should get credit for this: rats=bad hair
| day in sewers and run down buildings versus squirrels=good hair
| day in the parks and trees, and the squirrels hired a very good
| public relations firm. See how much of a difference that makes?
| legerdemain wrote:
| > The scientific name of the American red squirrel, Tamiasciurus
| hudsonicus, translates to "the steward who sits in the shadow of
| his tail."
|
| _Tamiasciurus hudsonicus_ means "hoarding squirrel from the
| Hudson."
| dvh wrote:
| JavaScript is just C without pointers
| akhmatova wrote:
| No, it's not PR operation, and no, Sarah Jessica Parker does not
| have anything of interest to to say about the matter.
|
| Squirrels are obviously very different from, and much smarter
| than rats. Their appearance and grooming are a reflection of this
| deeper fact, not simply a gimmick or an accident.
|
| What a silly article.
| blacklion wrote:
| Rats are social animals and much smarter than most of rodents
| (including squirrels). Trust me, my mother was behavioral
| biologist, and she experimented with both rats (black rats,
| Rattus rattus) and red (European) squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris).
| akhmatova wrote:
| I'll have to take the subject up with your mom, then. On the
| surface, at least, almost everything that squirrels do (from
| their manual dexterity to their nest building and food
| storage) suggests that they operate on a higher plane than
| rats.
| kypro wrote:
| At my old house we had a family of squirrels that lived in the
| trees at the back which I would feed. One night I looked out the
| window and I saw a rat eating the nuts I had left out for the
| squirrels earlier. The rat somehow climbed up the fence and
| managed to get onto the squirrel feeder. After I saw this I
| brought a new feeder so that the squirrels had to jump to the
| nuts which meant the rat couldn't get to the nuts anymore, but
| then my girlfriend asked why I care more about squirrels than the
| rat and she had a point because the rat wasn't doing us no harm.
| It wasn't getting into the house or getting into our bins or
| anything like that. It was just eating the left over nuts in the
| evening.
|
| I'm an animal lover so it weighed on my conscience for a while,
| but I think there probably is a difference between the two. I was
| happy to feed the squirrels because I knew they wouldn't get into
| the house or damage my property. On the other hand a rat
| investigation can be a nightmare. Rats are cool creatures, but
| there's a reason people don't like them.
| nradov wrote:
| Rats can jump. I stored some dog food in my garage and didn't
| think they could reach it, but they were able to jump across a
| sizable gap between shelves.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > investigation
|
| Infestation?
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Rat investigation reminds me of that one Love, Death + Robots
| episode. Very industrious little guys.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I wish someone would investigate these squirrels and
| interrogate them under oath. Get them on the record and not
| let them weasel out of telling the truth.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| squirrels will definitely get in the house and damage property
| if given the chance.
| malshe wrote:
| We just found this out last week! The squirrels ruined our
| swing cushion on the porch. We were totally confused when we
| saw the torn cushion but later my wife saw a squirrel picking
| out the cushion fiber and carrying it to the tree.
| oever wrote:
| The squirrels eat eggs and young birds. This is harder for the
| rats.
|
| Rat nests are better protected against predators because they
| are underground.
|
| Both will feed off of accessible food. Do not spill food and
| keep it in sturdy containers to avoid infestation.
| josefresco wrote:
| I have both in my neighborhood. Squirrels live in the trees,
| prance around my yard, are very passive and bury nuts. The rats
| live in the trash heap that my shut-in neighbor keeps in her
| garage and property, carry disease and are quite aggressive. They
| may be similar in biology but not in behavior or diet.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Squirrels don't always bury nuts. They will drop them into a
| convenient narrow opening. You may be able to exploit this
| behavior if you have, say, a walnut tree. Drive a vertical pipe
| into the ground, let the squirrels drop their nuts into it,
| then take the pipe and the nuts. You effectively have gotten
| the squirrels to harvest the nuts for you (with some
| inefficiency).
|
| On the other hand... squirrels can also carry disease. Around
| here it is not unknown for them to carry bubonic plague.
| cafard wrote:
| The leave pretty big divots in the yard, but as long as they
| stay out of the attic, I don't mind much. A squirrel's tail
| does look like a rat's if it has the sun behind it.
| jrumbut wrote:
| But if they do get in the attic it's a nightmare. I would
| take 100 mice over one squirrel.
| r_murphey wrote:
| I would take a hundred squirrel over one raccoon.
| jrumbut wrote:
| If you made me choose between having a raccoon or a bear
| in my attic, I might choose the bear.
| s0rce wrote:
| I'm not sure if you are saying rats leave divots? The
| squirrels around here live in the ground and make huge holes.
| I don't really see many rats.
| tzs wrote:
| They also seem to enjoy just stashing nuts in out of the way
| places instead of burying them.
|
| Here's a Douglas squirrel adding to a stash she had in my
| garage [1]. I've seen her adding to that particular stash at
| least a dozen times. Here's another one I've seen her add
| dozens of peanuts to [2].
|
| I went to get a towel from a box of shop towels once and found
| a dozen peanuts. She went to add another one to that stash, but
| I was standing right next to it which caught her by surprise
| [3], so she instead added it to a little pile she kept on a
| nearby windowsill.
|
| [1]
| https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/LBXYRIUDT-C0OvwPtaqdgA....
|
| [2]
| https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/lD9SWB1cQ4ycTT6CC7ZrgA....
|
| [3] https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/jNo-
| VW4vQVaMUsBQmhyn0w....
| narrator wrote:
| Squirrels don't break into your home in the middle of the night
| and trash your stuff. That's why I don't mind squirrels and
| despise rats. Maybe it's that squirrels don't have the ability
| to squeeze through tiny little holes in foundations and so
| forth that makes them better neighbors.
| alar44 wrote:
| Yes, they absolutely do.
| AvSaba wrote:
| Near the place that I live squirrels are vital to the ecosystem.
| Basically they can't remember the location of all the seed that
| they buried and forgotten seeds become trees :)
| sliken wrote:
| Indeed, which is why trees bother with the expense of making
| nuts.
| JayBear wrote:
| ... and pigeons are just air rats :P
| protastus wrote:
| I see no controversy here, but I like both animals and have had
| pet rats.
|
| Yes, they have many similarities. Both are rodents.
| james_pm wrote:
| Rats are fine by me as well and I also had a number of them as
| pets over the years. That said, the rats in San Fran that I saw
| a couple of years ago when visiting were HUGE and I was not a
| fan.
|
| I suspect some of the fear of rats is that they generally give
| off the vibe of "I'll bite you if you get close" vs. the
| skittishness of squirrels who will scurry off up a tree if you
| even try to approach.
| otikik wrote:
| And shrimp are just sea cockroaches.
|
| But people keep eating them in this multiverse.
|
| At least they are not eating spiders like in the previous one.
| greenbit wrote:
| Let's not forget lobsters are just giant underwater bugs
| vixen99 wrote:
| And ...?
| marcodiego wrote:
| Like hamsters?
| reidjs wrote:
| Admit it, The Atlantic is just a dumbed down The New Yorker.
| jhbadger wrote:
| They are very similar publications, but I'm not sure which one
| is "dumbed down" relative to the other. Instead, there is a lot
| of variation within each magazine. Some articles are brilliant
| examples of "long form" journalism which sometimes later get
| expanded into entire books, others are puff pieces, and yet
| others (like this article) are somewhere in between.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| As someone that dated an Atlantic contributor (as well as her
| being the senior editor over at The Walrus, Canada's answer
| to The New Yorker) I can very clearly give you an answer
| here:
|
| The Atlantic is great, but it is in no league with The New
| Yorker. I wouldn't have called it "dumbed down" but it's
| still not as sharp and that is ok. The world appreciates
| both.
| rvz wrote:
| It has been already admitted that the Atlantic is a
| questionable news source.
|
| Obviously they are just as hungry as rats for your clicks onto
| their ads so they can continue to write up more nonsense like
| this article. Perhaps there's not enough rats subscribing to
| the Atlantic today?
|
| So it doesn't surprise me to see the comments to this article
| here and that Atlantic is now turning their attention to doing
| hit-pieces on squirrels? Oh dear.
|
| It really is garbage in, garbage out, for all the rats to read
| it and give them ad money if you are not paying. No wonder that
| article is free; and many others.
| turns0ut wrote:
| systemvoltage wrote:
| You mean, _this_ New Yorker?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32044754
|
| I completely and categorically disagree. The New Yorker has
| derailed on many fronts. It has become an ideological hell
| hole. If you have access to a public library, you can browse
| pre-2000's New Yorker on archive.org which was a totally
| different publication all together.
| parenthesis wrote:
| I totally hate (grey) squirrels. The damage they do to my garden
| is turning me into Mr McGregor. Just today I removed multiple
| discarded peanut shells from a bed I was preparing. (Perhaps I
| just hate the humans who feed them these.)
|
| They've dug holes in my lawn, killed a sapling by digging into
| its pot. And they are so tame you have to chase them off from
| close quarters.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| Grey squirrels are invasive where I am, but hunting them is
| unfortunately legally dubious at best.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| adopt a rescue dog? game on!
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| They eat all of our pears before they're ready-- and before we
| even get a chance to get them. Very selfish.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Squirrels are annoying as hell and anyone who loves them has
| never tried to garden.
|
| Rats indeed.
|
| On the other hand, survival youtubers discuss how they are
| delicious and don't taste like rat at all.
| throw827474737 wrote:
| Gardening and still loving squirrels... though the red European
| much less rat-like-looking cute ones, not your nasty gray
| haters!!
|
| The biggest annoyance are racoons here, still loving them..
| rats, especially fat ones, ugh.. but they also just want to
| survive :)
| Merad wrote:
| Growing up on a farm we were constantly shooting squirrels out
| of fruit trees and off of bird feeders. It was amazing to me
| how they were barely concerned with gunfire and not at all
| bothered by the dead bodies of other squirrels. There were a
| few days I probably shot 5-6 of them all in the same place in
| the span of just a few hours.
| greenbit wrote:
| Can't grow pumpkins around here anymore, since the furry tailed
| tree rats discovered that pumpkins are full of pumpkin seeds.
| Ever since that year, every pumpkin big enough to bore three
| inch hole into has had a three inch hole bored into it and its
| insides removed. From there they decided to test the nearby
| winter squash and will mostly destroy that, too. Not a fan of
| squirrels anymore.
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| The Huntress shared her squirrel melt sandwich recipe...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqo_GbzCjmg#squirrelmelts
| https://www.google.com/search?q=huntress+squirrel+melts
| 6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote:
| Unless they're red [1]
|
| 1. https://greysquirrelcontrol.co.uk/
| hunglee2 wrote:
| it's an interesting premise - how to explain our irrational
| categorisation of animals as tolerated vs not tolerated. I
| believe it is in the main due to the animals attitude _to us_.
|
| here's my sketch framework
|
| 1. Pets - vassalized companions who accept human hegemony
|
| 2. Prey - harmless food, too dumb to realise what we have in
| store for them
|
| 3. Predators - resistant to human hegemony, dangerous competitors
| which need to be contained
|
| 4. Pests - resistant to human hegemony, not direct competitors
| but more invidiously have figured out a way to uniquely exploit
| the system _we_ have set up exclusively for human benefit. To be
| exterminated
| InitialLastName wrote:
| You forgot "Victims - Incompatibility with human hegemony can
| be used to sell calendars"
| Scarblac wrote:
| Cats are predators who accept our offerings of food and
| petting.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| they are also edible, so prey item in some cultures also.
| Truth is you can move animals across these boundaries but it
| does feel unethical. Rabbits good example - clearly widely
| eaten, yet once a pet, could you turn it into food? You'd be
| a wrong 'un if you did!
| samatman wrote:
| Surely cats are the least eaten domesticated animal,
| especially per catpita.
| enriquto wrote:
| Good for squirrels, then? Rats are really cool animals!
| adastra22 wrote:
| I know, right?
|
| We seem to be the minority though. I know multiple people in
| real life who have an absurdly irrational reaction to rats.
| They react to merely seeing a rat or mouse scurrying around the
| way you might if you suddenly felt a tarantula crawling up your
| neck. Interestingly my wife is one of them, and my daughter
| once thought mice and rats were cute (I agree!) until she saw
| mom freak out, and now she's just as jumpy. Makes me wonder if
| this response is in-built or learned behavior.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| In the 90s there was a great sitcom called Spin City with Michael
| J. Fox and subsequently Charlie Sheen. The best line about this
| topic I've ever heard was on that show, "Squirrels are just rats
| with good PR". I wonder how well that show holds up, doesn't seem
| like you can stream it anywhere other than Pluto which I don't
| have - maybe I'll get yet another streaming service...
| pjmlp wrote:
| If I remember correctly, in today's cancel culture, the show's
| jokes would make it get out of the air rather quickly.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Definitely
| guardiangod wrote:
| It's my favorite sitcom of the 90s. The jokes are witty and
| have punches to them, and the show doesn't try to pretend its
| social observations are philosophically deep.
| hancholo wrote:
| Squirrels are a pain just as rats are but in another way. They're
| all around the apartments I live in and constantly get into our
| plants and destroy them. I spray cayenne pepper and other
| deterrents once in a while but they don't always work unless you
| keep at it multiple times a day.
| [deleted]
| t_mann wrote:
| I've often wondered along similar lines, and my explanation was
| always related to what's mentioned in the article as well: the
| Black Death killed around two thirds of the European population,
| without rats being identified as the main source of the disease.
| So today's Europeans (and Americans with European ancestry) have
| a high probability of being ancestors of people who, for whatever
| odd reason, had an intrinsic aversion to rats.
| adastra22 wrote:
| This doesn't affect your evolutionary argument, but rats didn't
| spread the Black Death. Human lice was the carrier. We've only
| recently confirmed this previously minority theory through
| genetic evidence, but it always fit the data better. Goes to
| show that there is some sort of deeply held aversion to rats
| such that people were more willing to believe that explanation.
|
| I don't understand it. I think mice and rats are cute :\
| t_mann wrote:
| Interesting, do you have a reference? I'd say it affects my
| theory a lot, haha
| deanCommie wrote:
| Bushy tail.
|
| That's 99% of it.
|
| We can talk about behaviour, or aggression, or disease, but i
| think even if rats acted like squirrels in every way, but still
| didn't have the bushy tail, we'd prefer squirrels.
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