In this squirrel quadrathlon, each animal fared differently, but their respective performances remained consistent across the three years Aliperti observed them. Then, a researcher monitored the squirrel’s behavior for a few minutes to score its aggressiveness or docility before letting it back out. Upon entering the trap, the squirrel’s weight triggered a latch, and-īender: the cage closed. Finally, scientists set up harmless metal cages and lured squirrels inside with sunflower seeds or peanut butter. The third test consisted of a researcher slowly approaching a squirrel in its habitat to see how close they could get, a measure of the squirrel’s boldness. Some squirrels avoided the mirror, while others approached it head on and pressed their noses up to it, a behavior typically seen between squirrel moms and their pups.
Chipmunk vs ground squirrel trial#
Since squirrels haven’t been shown to recognize their own reflections, this trial let researchers observe how a ground squirrel would treat another member of its species. In the second test, for sociability, Aliperti slid out a trap wall, revealing a mirror in the arena. Aliperti tracked a squirrel’s actions with a GoPro camera and analyzed its activity-did the squirrel investigate the floor? Was it grooming? Or was it trying to escape, as you can hear in this clip: But I think that if we said that to people, they just might not take us seriously.īender: Two tests took place in an arena consisting of a small wooden box with four indentations in the floor. Essentially, a Myers’ Briggs personality test for ground squirrels.Īliperti: It pretty much is a Myers Briggs for squirrels. They're following me around instead of me following them around, I was like, “What's going on here? It's supposed to be the other way around!”īender: Other scientists had observed individual animals that looked like they might have personalities, but no one had evaluated them rigorously to see if their quirks met the definition of consistent behavior over time.įrom 2016 to 2018, Aliperti put dozens of squirrels through a four-part Olympics that assessed the rodents on four characteristics: activity, sociability, boldness, and aggressiveness. Jaclyn Aliperti: I look away for a second, and they're sneaking into my bag and trying to get at the peanut butter. To her, some of the squirrels seemed skittish and shy, while others that were more than happy to get up close and personal for a snack: There they had been studying the behavior of golden-mantled ground squirrels for over 30 years. But it’s something Jaclyn Aliperti noticed back in 2015, when she joined a project at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado.
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So it might come as a surprise that according to new research, these squirrels have observable personalities. And talk about bird-brained: ground squirrels’ brains are about the size of the pine nuts they eat.
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I’m Maddie Bender.Ĭompared to its more famous, bushy-tailed cousin the tree squirrel, the golden-mantled ground squirrel looks a lot like a chipmunk and spends most of the year hibernating. Maddie Bender: This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science.