When fall arrives, you may notice the squirrels in your neighborhood going a little nuts. That’s because autumn is the season when squirrels receive a bounty of food as trees in the forest mast, or bear fruit. Most people hardly think twice about the little rodents busily burying acorns and other nuts for the winter. But Mikel Delgado, an animal behaviorist at the University of California, Davis, suspected there was more to squirrels’ stockpiling of food than meets the eye.
In a series of clever experiments, Delgado looked at how squirrels make decisions about where to store nuts. She also examined how the animals react to unexpected events. Her research uncovered complexities of squirrel behavior that no one had ever recorded. Delgado discussed with Science World her research into why squirrels and other animals act the way they do.