After more than a decade studying California ground squirrels, Jennifer Smith felt she had a solid understanding of their behavior. Then, in the summer of 2024, her students spotted something she never expected: one of the squirrels chased, killed and ate a vole, a small rodent common across the western coast of North America. Until now, the California ground squirrel (Otospermophilus beecheyi) had been described as an animal that ate mostly acorns and grass seeds. They’ve been observed eating bark, flowers, leaves and the very occasional insect or bird egg. At first, Smith, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Wisconsin, U.S., couldn’t believe it. “I was shocked and very skeptical,” she told Mongabay by email. “In twelve years of studying these ground squirrels, we have never seen anything like this before!” Over the next seven weeks at Briones Regional Park in California’s Contra Costa county, Smith’s team documented 74 cases of squirrels hunting voles (Microtus californicus). The findings have now been published in a study. From a population of 125 squirrels, they recorded at least 27 individuals taking part: male and female, young and old. The carnivorous behavior wasn’t passive; the squirrels stalked, chased and pounced on their prey. And for an animal that had never before been recorded hunting, they were surprisingly proficient at it. Out of the 31 documented hunting attempts, 17 resulted in a kill, a success rate of 55%. “The sounds on the videos were quite shocking as the squirrels crunched on the skulls of…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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