Where are the baby squirrels?
In the March 24 New Yorker, as I've fallen issues behind again, David Sedaris names all the spiders in his Normandy house (abstract). He writes, "Why Marty or Curtis or Big Chief Tommy didn't mate with April is a mystery, and I put it on a list beside other nagging questions, such as 'What was Jesus like as a teen-ager?' and 'Why is it you never see a baby squirrel?' "
With Jesus, Family Guy's answer led the Parents Television Council to name the episode "Worst TV Show of the Week." With baby squirrels, I had a better answer on hand. I went to the oddest book on my shelf, Outwitting Squirrels, one man's quest to understand squirrels in order to stop them from stealing birdseed from his birdfeeder.
Squirrels grow rapidly. When they are one day old, squirrels measure about four inches long, and are furless, pink, and blind. They really go look like rats. When squirrels are two weeks old they've grown another one and a half inches, their skin has begun to darken, and — thank goodness — their hair has begun to appear. It is in the following week that a squirrel's incisors start to appear in its lower jaw. At week five squirrels open their eyes. They are now between nine and ten inches long, have developed their lower gnawing teeth and upper teeth, but still have no grinding teeth.
Grinding teeth appear in their sixth week of life. Around their seventh week squirrels have had their first taste of bark, twigs, buds, or leaves, but continue to derive most of their sustenance from their mother's milk. The baby squirrel's front teeth make suckling at time uncomfortable for the mother squirrel. It's around this time that squirrels first leave the nest, but many continue to be nursed until they are twelve weeks old. As Professor Vagn Flyger of the University of Maryland points out, "It takes longer to make a squirrel than other mammals."
And now you know. Jack Hanna would be so proud of you. For more baby animals, see Yahoo's most e-mailed photos.
Previous squirrel coverage in this blog:
-March 13, 2005: Berry Crackles
-October 28, 2004: Ever see a surprised squirrel?
-December 14, 2003: Snowy day
September 27th, 2011 at 8:59 AM
[...] 2008: Where are the baby squirrels? -October 2004: Ever see a surprised [...]