Hungry Fox Squirrel

I left you yesterday with a picture of this squirrel just as he was leaping up onto an old tree branch with a little prize of an acorn in his hands. Well here is in all his glory eating the first of three acorns he found. He knew I was standing there the whole time, but he was much more interested in his prize than he was of me.

I have five pictures of him for you today because I'm especially proud of these shots of him. These may be the best pictures of a squirrel that I've ever gotten. I think I was amazingly lucky this time. Even a day later my attempts to duplicate this level of photography have failed.

It was just so interesting and fun watching as this little guy gobbled up three acorns right in front of me. Every once in a while he would look up at me just to make sure I wasn't a danger, but he would quickly go back about his business of devouring his snacks. I also discovered something very interesting.

With every acorn this squirrel would dig out of the carpet of leaves, he would grab them up and jump up onto a higher part of a branch to eat them. There he would always be standing on his hind legs while eating. He also always made sure he was facing me while he ate. He grasped his acorns in his little hands like a small child would with an apple.

Looking closely at the photos, I noticed that what I would normally call paws on any other animal really look more like little hands. The way he grasps the acorns seems to suggest that he even has what appears to be thumbs similar to a human's or a monkey's. It's just so amazing to me!

You can even see his individual knuckles in these photos! The fur on his fingers is two colors; black on the knuckles and brown on the rest of the finger. Compared to a human he has extra long fingers and wicked looking claws on the ends. I once saw a werewolf in a movie with hands just like his.

Speaking of odd things, I read a story in an online newspaper from Florida where people were reporting several monkeys on the loose in their neighborhood, and those creatures were causing a lot of mischief. The police were called, and they decided that the monkeys escaped from a local circus.

After chasing the monkeys around for quite some time, the police finally got a much better look at one of them. They even got a picture. It turned out that the monkeys were not monkeys at all. They were actually fox squirrels just like this one. The police said that they were the biggest squirrels they had ever seen.

I've always thought squirrels are the closest thing we have to monkeys here in the United States. They share many traits between them. Both are excellent tree climbers that use their tails for balance. Both have almost human hands. They both like to throw things at humans. Both are very intelligent creatures. They are both rather aggressive creatures, though monkeys are much more so.

Who knows? Maybe squirrels like the one here will evolve to be something much more. Maybe they'll even rival humans, except they'll have an obsession with nuts. It's one of the most fun things I've been able to do, observing the behavior and intelligence of forest creatures like these.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not done with this little guy yet. I hope you'll still find him entertaining in the days to come. He may have been the most interesting little creature I've met up with so far. Almost as friendly as the raccoons that I met. And as curious as many of the deer that have come close to me.

I'll be back tomorrow with something new and different from my new little friend.