Squirrel

Guest Reviewers: Toby and Moji

Notable Variations: Rat (the so-called “bald-tailed land squirrel”), Paintbrush
Habitat: Trees, almost exclusively, Fences, Bird Tables

Good Evening (or whatever chunk of the day it is when you read this),

I write to submit a review of The Squirrel, carried out by myself and my associate, in the hope that you will include it on your excellent site. I live in darkest Devon in the UK, so I see lots of animals, almost every day. My associate lives in London, so she only knows what a pigeon looks like in terms of real, live animals, but she has read about other animals, and seen them on TV, as well as gleaning a greater understanding from your superlative site.

Anyway, here's our review - I hope you enjoy it.

First Impressions:

Good, largely due to possessing a semblance of in-built biological anti-gravity, a property I have not observed in any other animal. A squirrel, finding itself on the ground will shortly, without any apparent effort on it’s part, be several meters higher than it was mere seconds before. The magical squirrel doesn’t appear to care whether the only high place is atop four meters of glass-smooth wall – give it a couple of seconds and it will be there.

Very rare shot of a squirrel on the ground.
Note it’s resemblance to it’s cousin, the Rat.
In less than 40 milliseconds, this squirrel
will be much higher up.

In addition to this unnatural ability, squirrels often demonstrate a wide range of more mundane abilities, often to the tune of the “Mission Impossible” theme. These skills include tightrope walking, jumping large distances, swinging on ropes, and chewing through ANYTHING. Yes, Squirrels teeth have been proven by scientists to be able to penetrate any substance – doors, fences, that wire mesh that contains peanuts that are intended for a hungry bird population…

This is in fact the squirrels only real bad point – his morals are highly questionable. Whether this is a genetic side-effect of his close relationship to cousin Rat (a well known master criminal) or of his often dangerous work for the Mission Impossible people is difficult to tell, but he will lie, cheat and steal peanuts given half a chance.

That said, another good point of the squirrel is that his tail hair can be used to make paintbrushes for those of an artistic temperament. Leonardo Da Vinci is said to have kept a pet squirrel named Dave for just this purpose.

Another point worth noting is appearance – while most people would without hesitation classify the squirrel as “Cute”, shave his tale and what have you got? A Rat. That lives in trees. Now, most people would not classify rats as anything like cute…so what’s going on there?

Behaviour:

As outlined above, squirrels spend a large portion of their time in high places, and the remainder of their time levitating to high places. When safely high up, their activities seem to involve mainly racing around crazily from branch to branch, running up and down vertical surfaces, and eating. And stealing other animals designated food supplies.

Good Pet / Bad Pet:

On the whole, I’d have to say Bad Pet. Containment being the problem. Your best bet in containing a squirrel would be to “contain it “ in thirty acres of virgin deciduous forest. Which presents problems for the average family living room. Also, if you keep a squirrel and a bird (say, a parrot) as a pet, the squirrel will steal all the birds food.

Some squirrels exhibit behavioural
problems associated with drug use

Celebrity Owners:

Leonardo Da Vinci
Slash from Guns’N’Roses (Almost definitely)
Bruce Forsyth

Verdict:

In summary, squirrels are cute, very agile, but with criminal tendencies and an ability to chew through any attempt at containment. And shave his tale and you’ve got a rat. And the raw materials for several paintbrushes. So, a tricky animal to review :

+ Agile and amusing to watch
+ Cute
+ Source of Paintbrushes

- Nearly a rat
- Has criminal tendencies (see above)
- Ability to practically levitate is un-natural.
- Can chew through anything.

Overall Squirrel Score : 4.6/10

Animal Reviews Independent Moderation Panel:

What a fantastic review.

You are of course correct when you say that dual ownership of squirrels and parrots is a sure fire recipe for disaster. This was aptly demonstrated a few weeks ago when the Animal Reviews cleaner unwittingly released a drey full of the acorn harvesting rascals at precisely the moment that we were wheeling in a fresh barrow load of Brazil nuts for the aviary. If we hadn't been wearing our hard hats and overalls, who knows what might have transpired that day.

But hang on. Surely the 'nut wars' of which you speak would be hilarious. Imagine the scene for a moment - it'd be like real life Looney Tunes. The squirrels would mount an early morning assault and sneak off with the parrots' sunflower seed breakfasts. The annoyed parrots would then counter attack with a devastating lunchtime bouncing bomb attack perhaps using champagne corks. Then (around tea time) the squirrels would all storm the parrot fortress and steal their miniature bicycles, and probably ride off between the trees ringing the bell and shouting.

It would be great.

In closing then, we feel that you're slightly off on this one. And anyway, birds in cages? Very naughty. Given the choice, we'd rather have a squirrel than a parrot. Unless you're a pirate of course, but if that's the case then you'd have your parrot on a perch not in a cage. And you'd have a monkey, so you wouldn't even need a squirrel.

Honestly Toby and Moji, what kind of pirates are you?

Love,
Theo and Max