Squirrels douse themselves with rattlesnake scent as a safety measure, scientists suggest, and likely have done so for at least 18 million years.
— Read more at Rattlesnake perfume a longtime squirrel safety measure at USA Today.
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How fascinating.
I wonder if the squirrels actually “thought” about that. Or maybe it is more likely that they happened to eat something that didn’t taste bad, and they happened to survive longer. That in turn would allow them to breed more and subsequently teach their young what to eat.
Or maybe, there was a really smart squirrel somewhere that thought……”hmmmm….I eat this stuff and the snake goes around me and eats everybody else……hmmmm…..maybe I’ll just keep eating this stuff, oh, and I’ll give some to my wife/husband too!”.
Pity we can’t ask them.
What does snake scent smell like anyway?
It *is* a pity we can’t ask them 🙂
Squirrels rule 🙂
They sure rule my yard.
I love the phrase “rattlesnake perfume.”
Reading that article, I thought of a quote someone recently introduced me to from Woody Allen’s “Love and Death”: “Nature is like an enormous restaurant.”
LOL…so it is!