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Warning…warm tail

Photo: AFP

Effective weapon: Just a shake of the tail.

Adult California ground squirrels use their tails to warn off snakes that threaten their young. While shaking the tail aggressively is a common factor, they warm the tail if the predator is a rattlesnake but not if it’s a gopher snake. Rattlesnakes can sense heat due to infrared radiation but gopher snakes are not sensitive to heat. Aaron Rundus, who led a study on animal behaviour, noted that adult squirrels can survive the snake venom and that they attack and bite the snakes. The snakes tend to go for the young, immature ones, which they can eat. Researchers noticed that the squirrels tended to wave their tails more in the dark when the predator was a rattlesnake.

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