Posted on 06/15/2010 9:05:22 PM PDT by 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
I can go peacefully. 8)
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!
“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.
:-)
I’ve watched whitetailed deer eat them too. Certain types of ‘shrooms they seem to really relish! Never saw any die from it.
They’re just pre-making gravy.
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.
Only the ones that folks call shrooooomssss. wow man!
Article #1871
by Ned Rozell
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. * * * |
Squirrel post ping
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
Squirrel eating mushroom.
(I couldn’t find a video of a mushroom eating a squirrel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exqHYEk3AuE
“A BIRD”?
It's so they can grow hair on their......uh.... you figure it out.
Here’s a video of a squirrel after it ate the magic mushrooms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhq-96R1ELw&feature=related
Yes they do.
Unfortunately, just like humans, they kind of enjoy the high.
Eating mushrooms could explain alot about squirrel behavior.
I’ve got one for you
Little hamster falling asleep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A_eOouPbII
the comments are hilarious!
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