Mushroom Eating Squirrel (Vanity)

[plinyelder]

This .. I know is an odd question and I couldn't figure out exactly how or where to post it so-o-o "You Won"! 8)

A lot of folks DO look upon squirrels as a pest but I kinda get a kick out of watching them.

I have never seen a squirrel eat a back-yard mushroom .. until today!

I don't know what kind of mushroom this would be but I guess that it is the typical, growing over buried, dead wood type that grows in forested areas. (my home is in a 'forest')

I walked around looking for a 'dead squirrel' a few hours after I saw what he was eating but .. no carcases!?

Is this normal .. for squirrels to eat mushrooms?

Will I be picking up dead squirrels .. maybe tomorrow?

Thanks

[plinyelder]

I've Seen It All Now!

I can go peacefully. 8)

[Fantasywriter]

I’ve seen this before. I used to have fat white mushrooms in my MA yard, and the squirrels ate them like potato chips. A lot of fun to watch!

[Optimist]

“I’ve Seen It All Now!”

unfortunately without a video to go with your post,
you are the only one that has seen it all, now.
:-)

[snuffy smiff]

I’ve watched whitetailed deer eat them too. Certain types of ‘shrooms they seem to really relish! Never saw any die from it.

[Vigilantcitizen]

They’re just pre-making gravy.

[mnehring]

I have a friend who is a OCD chef/forager who has mentioned several times that most mushrooms are not dangerous, it is just the ones that are dangerous are so bad, they give the entire foraging hobby a bad name. I have a feeling squirrels have enough evolution behind them to know the difference.

[guitarplayer1953]

Only the ones that folks call shrooooomssss. wow man!

[Screaming_Gerbil]

Alaska Science Forum September 5, 2007

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Squirrels and toxic mushrooms; aspens and leaf miners

Article #1871

by Ned Rozell

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This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute.

Fairbanks reader darleen masiak recently saw a red squirrel carrying an Amanita mushroom across her deck, presumably to stash it in its midden for the winter. She wanted to know how such a small mammal could survive after eating a mushroom that is toxic in large doses.

Fungus expert Gary Laursen of the University of Alaska Fairbanks confirmed that forest squirrels, both red and flying, cache Amanita mushrooms as well as other “psychoactive” mushrooms that affect the central nervous system. He has dug into squirrel middens in the boreal forest and found many samples of the mushrooms. He said a biologist recently contacted him and told him he’d seen grouse digging up and eating mushrooms that would be toxic in large doses to humans.

“Many animals are known to go after the psychoactive ‘shrooms,” Laursen said.

Brian Barnes, a physiologist and the director of the Institute of Arctic Biology, said a squirrel’s liver might be able to detoxify the active agents in the mushrooms, but he knows of no evidence for this. Barnes studies arctic ground squirrels on Alaska’s North Slope. He thinks young male ground squirrels might be eating lots of fungi, including potent ones, as they stir in their dens from hibernation. The squirrels often emerge from hibernation fatter than when they went in.

“I wonder if, while in their cold and completely dark hibernaculum, arctic ground squirrels are eating psychoactive mushrooms and whether they respond by experiencing hallucinations, feelings of well being, and laughing fits, as do humans (or so I’m told),” Barnes wrote in an email.

* * *

[SoCalPol]

Squirrel post ping

[null and void]

[plinyelder]

[nolongerademocrat]

This is what they look like after eating fermented pumpkin:

Drunk Squirrel Tries to Climb Tree - Break Fails
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0so5er4X3dc

[UCANSEE2]

Squirrel eating mushroom.

(I couldn’t find a video of a mushroom eating a squirrel)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exqHYEk3AuE

[plinyelder]

“A BIRD”?

[uglybiker]

It's so they can grow hair on their......uh.... you figure it out.

[UCANSEE2]

Here’s a video of a squirrel after it ate the magic mushrooms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhq-96R1ELw&feature=related

[UCANSEE2]

I have a feeling squirrels have enough evolution behind them to know the difference.

Yes they do.

Unfortunately, just like humans, they kind of enjoy the high.

Squirrel on Shrooms

[dangus]

Eating mushrooms could explain alot about squirrel behavior.

[verum ago]

plinyelder: if the mushroom was poisonous, it'll probably take awhile (18 hrs to a couple days) to kill the squirrel. But some edible mushrooms grow from dead wood too. However, I'm inclined to think that if the squirrel was eating it, odds are it was edible.

I've seen squirrels eat mushrooms in my own yard and be none the worse for wear. However, once, while I was collecting for a mycology class, I came across a patch of Amanita pantherina and observed a squirrel eating one. I was unable to collect any (bags were all full), so I came back the next day. Lo and behold, there was a dead squirrel, probably the same one I'd seen the day before.

Got any pictures of the mushrooms in question? I could take a stab at identifying them- the odor, a good pic of the gills/pores, a cross section, and one just of the whole thing and its surroundings would give me a fighting chance. A spore print would be invaluable too- take the shroom, remove the stipe (if it has one), and lay it on a piece of paper for maybe a couple hours and let the spores collect on the paper. The paper should be part white, part black.

[nolongerademocrat]

I’ve got one for you

Little hamster falling asleep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A_eOouPbII

the comments are hilarious!

[nolongerademocrat]

Please tell me this one is not real:

baby with snake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oh0v_DHFrw&feature=related

[plinyelder]

There isn’t a mushroom .. anywhere!

I think the little bugger ran around stuffing himself and maybe buried the rest?

[null and void]

Yep. Or more accurately, a bird in winter and a bird in summer.

[Natural Born 54]

Do you know why red squirrels are the only type of squirrel in an area once they move in? Your animation made me remember the interesting answer. Despite their small size, they won’t tolerate other species of squirrels in their territory. To get rid of the other squirrels, reds will attack the male of the other species and bite off his jewels thereby rendering him incapable of reproducing!

[Markos33]

"Will I be picking up dead squirrels .. maybe tomorrow?"

Mushrooms are fine for squirrels...

It's the liquor that they can't handle.

[this_ol_patriot]

[plinyelder]

It must be the same with black squirrels.

Right down the block from me .. all I ever see are black squirrels.

I never knew there were such things as black squirrels until I saw them down the street!

[verum ago]

Not just birds. Squirrels can be cannibalistic too. (What won't rodents eat..?)

[Natural Born 54]

It might be the same but it could also be that the black hair trait is genetically dominant over the other color so eventually you’d get the same result.

[plinyelder]

... it could also be that the black hair trait is genetically dominant over the other color so eventually you’d get the same result.

I hope so!
Those black one's are something to behold!

[uglybiker]

I don't care what they do, as long as the squirrels don't get into important stuff!

[nolongerademocrat]

LOL!

[Natural Born 54]

Yes. I’d trade our red ones for your black ones in a heartbeat.

[Natural Born 54]

Good one!

[SMARTY]

Well... they ARE rodents.

[snuffy smiff]

Sure those are not fox squirrels? Around here the predominant ones are grays but every now and then a fox squirrel comes around. Considerably darker in color and somewhat larger than a gray.

[snuffy smiff]

Or as we call them “tree rats’...

[vigilante2]

Animals know what and what not to eat

[a fool in paradise]

Interesting to read about the animals going to shrooms. I just read that one of the researchers into dolphins in the 1960s was giving them LSD. At least the animals seeking shrooms are responsible for their own possible psychoactive states.

[a fool in paradise]

Animals know what and what not to eat

[a fool in paradise]

>>Eating mushrooms could explain alot about squirrel behavior.

Not a PING ping!

[Daffynition]

What's for dessert?

[Slings and Arrows]

I walked around looking for a 'dead squirrel' a few hours after I saw what he was eating but .. no carcases!?

You'll find his body next to his little bell-bottoms and lava lamp.

[Allegra]

Once I had this dream that I was living the song "I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats. The song was playing all through the dream and the story was playing out in front of me. It was really weird and then I woke up and...it was Monday!

I hate it when that happens.

[Darksheare]

If ever there was a thread that begged for Nully and his squirrel eating a bird photo.

[Slings and Arrows]

You have the BEST non-sequiturs!

[Slings and Arrows]

If only he had answered the call...

[Darksheare]

He did, but still.. this thread was just asking for it.
Dancing around saying “Pick Me! Pick Me!”

Where’s the soldier figurine ‘hunters’ on the squirrel corpse?
Didn’t see that one yet.

[Darksheare]

Dancing hamsters carrying oranges while the song “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood plays..
That was an odd dream.
Creepy considering I was about ten or so when I had that dream.. and still remember it.

[TheOldLady]

I was looking for a story about a vicious mushroom.