VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3], 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 09:27:47 12/22/07 Sat
Author: Dennis
Author Host/IP: unio-cas1-cs-7.dial.bright.net / 209.143.16.137
Subject: Smart Critters

Thu Dec 20, 11:02 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It's scary being a little, tasty squirrel, but
some species of the rodents have come up with an intimidating camouflage
-- snake smells.

California ground squirrels and rock squirrels chew up rattlesnake skin
and smear it on their fur to mask their scent, a team at the University
of California Davis reported.

"They're turning the tables on the snake," Donald Owings, a professor of
psychology who helped lead the research, said in a statement.

Barbara Clucas, a graduate student in animal behavior, watched ground
squirrels and rock squirrels chewing up pieces of skin shed by snakes
and then licking their fur.

The scent probably helps to mask the squirrel's own scent, especially
when the animals are asleep in their burrows, they wrote in the journal
Animal Behavior.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox: Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and David Wiessler)

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.