Why Do Squirrels Take Into Consideration When They Make Their Dietary Choices About Acorns

What factors will squirrels take into consideration when they make their dietary choices about acorns?
Liying Guo
11/9/2014
Abstract:
The squirrel is a kind of seed-predator feeding mostly on seeds and nuts, especially on acorns. For seed-predators, the dietary choices and caching management strategy are of vital significance for their lives. What factors squirrels will take into consideration when they make their dietary choices about acorns is a very interesting research topic in animal behavior study. According to experiments conducted by researchers before, the factors affecting squirrels’ dietary choices on caching management of acorns mainly are: perishability of acorns, nutrients concentration, insect-damage and prevention of germination

The annoying seeds which you may complain about are exactly the vital food source of squirrels – acorns. Acorns, wrapped in a hard, thick and cup-shaped shell, are the nut of the oaks.
Many species of animals take acorns as an important part of their diets. Besides small mammals like squirrels, larvae weevils (a kind of insect) feed on acorns by living in the young seed, damaging the kernels as they develop.
Acorns make up a rather large part of squirrels’ diet, resulting in most of dietary choices the squirrels make are about acorns. Therefore, what factors squirrels will take into consideration when they dietary choices about acorns are particularly important when we studying the animal behavior of squirrels. Researcher have already done lots of researches to find out the truths.
In terms of human diet choices, we may balance the nutrients we take in; may put the cheese we bought yesterday into refrigerator to avoid it rotting; may prefer the food with better flavor. Just the same as human, squirrels will think a lot when they make dietary choices about

Therefore, the shelled acorns are the acorns removed shells to increase perishability to compare with the insect-damaged acorns. The results were squirrels ate significantly more of intact acorns of red oak and carried these acorns much longer distances before caching; they chose to eat shelled and insect-damaged acorns right away. However, if you think squirrels dislike insect-damaged acorns, you are totally wrong. Do you remember that we have mentioned before that squirrels feed not only on seeds and nuts but also on insects, even on small vertebrates? Weevil larvae is a kind of insect to the taste of squirrels. It is observed that squirrels eat weevil larvae of infested acorns in more than 76% of all the trials.
The wise choices made by squirrels tell us clearly they can distinguish insect-damaged acorns from intact acorns with no difficulty, resulting in caching sound acorns for winter. As for insect damage, if the insects happen to be another resources of food for squirrels, it is awesome. Weevil larvae is a significant dietary supplement for squirrels, which never let