Wildlife encounters

If it hangs out any longer I may have to post in the "what's cooking" thread. . .

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SnakeCharmer said:
Buckeye butterfly! Don't see those as often as I did when I was a kid.
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Yep, that goes for most wildlife. Seems many are on the fast track to extinction or reduced population due to human activity and building. Slowly but surly we are taking away their homes, hunting and/or poisoning them directly or indirectly. My heart breaks when I think abut it or see road kill.....now to wipe off the tear running down my cheek.....
 
Danimal said:
Yep, that goes for most wildlife. Seems many are on the fast track to extinction or reduced population due to human activity and building. Slowly but surly we are taking away their homes, hunting and/or poisoning them directly or indirectly. My heart breaks when I think abut it or see road kill.....now to wipe off the tear running down my cheek.....
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Top of the food chain baby!
 
JbalColgate said:
Hi!

I saw a " Squirrel King", I was with 2 dogs, and could not help them at the moment..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_king

A squirrel king is a collection of squirrels whose tails have tangled together, making them unable to separate themselves.[1] It is similar to a phenomenon recorded in rats, the rat king.[2] A squirrel king starts as a litter of young in the same nest, whose tails become knotted together by nesting materials and/or by tree sap gluing the tails together, particularly if the young squirrels have been gnawing bark of the tree that their nest is in, letting sap flow. If the squirrels are not separated, they may fall to the ground still joined to each other when they try to come out of their nest, and will invariably die unless separated through human intervention.[3][4] Unlike the rat king, the squirrel king is not found in medieval European literature.[5]

The term rat king comes from the German, Rattenkönig, used to describe for persons who lived off others. An alternative theory states that the name in French was rouet de rats (or a spinning wheel of rats, the knotted tails being wheel spokes), with the term transforming over time into roi des rats,[6] because formerly French oi was pronounced [we] or similar; nowadays it is pronounced [wa].


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That's wild. Never heard of it happening with squirrels. :alien: They would also probably bite/scratch the crap out of you if you tried to separate them.
 
JbalColgate said:
Hi!

I saw a " Squirrel King", I was with 2 dogs, and could not help them at the moment..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_king

A squirrel king is a collection of squirrels whose tails have tangled together, making them unable to separate themselves.[1] It is similar to a phenomenon recorded in rats, the rat king.[2] A squirrel king starts as a litter of young in the same nest, whose tails become knotted together by nesting materials and/or by tree sap gluing the tails together, particularly if the young squirrels have been gnawing bark of the tree that their nest is in, letting sap flow. If the squirrels are not separated, they may fall to the ground still joined to each other when they try to come out of their nest, and will invariably die unless separated through human intervention.[3][4] Unlike the rat king, the squirrel king is not found in medieval European literature.[5]

The term rat king comes from the German, Rattenkönig, used to describe for persons who lived off others. An alternative theory states that the name in French was rouet de rats (or a spinning wheel of rats, the knotted tails being wheel spokes), with the term transforming over time into roi des rats,[6] because formerly French oi was pronounced [we] or similar; nowadays it is pronounced [wa].


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Gross and, awesome. I've never been able to see even an image of an actual rat king. As much as I hate rats and mice there's a weird fascination for me. I don't mind squirrels, although, I might think twice and grab a BB gun if I saw this in my olive tree.
 
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