Caching the nuts

This creature seen in the photo is a fox squirrel, Sciurus niger, and was photographed on October 1st on my way home from Benedictine University in Lisle, IL. The fox squirrel is a large rodent, it is so called for the hint of yellow-reddish fur on its ventral side, resembling a fox, and a large bushy tail. These squirrels use trees for their feeding and safety. Fox squirrels generally are hoarders of food and they often trade-off energy intake for predation risk. A trade-off means maximising one survival demand at the expense of some other trait. Fox squirrels forage on seeds, nuts, leaves and insects, mostly at greater distances from their nest as food is readily available near their homes. Given that there is more intraspecific competition over resources, including food, at lands closer to their habitat, these squirrels go larger distances to get valuable food items and also cache it for future. This behavior comes at the expense of predation risks as there is more distance travelled by the squirrel that increases exposure to potential predators. These guys face the dilemma of going further away at the risk of being preyed upon in order to find and save food that is less likely to be found by their conspecifics. As seen in the photograph above, acorns are one of their favorite foods, and to prevent any competition over food, these guys bury acorns, seeds underground and sometimes forget the location of their hidden seeds, and well, there grows a tree! Therefore, fox squirrels also aid in seed dispersal, helping many plants survive, hence help in forest regeneration. Given their ecological niche, they have a huge impact on the sustainability of the ecosystem.

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