“Why do squirrels bury nuts?”, Utsuka asks.

One afternoon Utsuka was enjoying a movie about ancient animals when she observed that the squirrel in the movie was obsessed with its hazel nut. This made her wonder why some squirrels bury nuts in the forest.

In this episode, Utsuka and Jigyasa explore how squirrels know where to store and what to store. And importantly, who teaches them that they need to store their food?

After learning not all squirrels bury nuts, they get speculative and ask what would happen if they move squirrels from the cold countries to India forever. Would the future generations of that squirrel forget to bury food? To answer this question, they ring up Dr. Karthikeyan Vasudevan, a wildlife scientist from Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology. Utsuka and Jigyasa also ask him how he studies animals in captivity and in forests.

We’re sure that Utuska and Jigyasa’s conversations would have made you ask questions. You can leave them on our website ( https://www.indiaaskswhy.org/contact/), and we’ll pick them up :)

References:

• https://phys.org/news/2018-04-uncovers-squirrels.html
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347205003374
• https://www.wildlifeonline.me.uk/questions/answer/what-controls-the-caching-behaviour-of-squirrels-and-how-do-they-find-their-bur#:~:text=During%20her%20work%20with%20hand,flawlessly%20from%20the%20first%20day