Flat Squirrels

Quite often during our RVing adventures we come across something new to us, or something a bit odd.  The latest thing we encountered made me stop and do a little research.

Flat squirrels.

Yes, you read that correctly… flat squirrels.

We are currently camp hosting in a national forest.  During the first couple of weeks I noticed that we kept seeing squirrels lying in the road that goes through the campground; flat on the road, spread-eagled, looking like they had been run over.  When we approached them, they would leisurely get up and amble off the road or scurry up a tree.

The first time we noticed it we were working on a task that had us going back and forth repeatedly.  As a result, we drove through the same area multiple times.  We kept coming across what appeared to be the same squirrel, lying in the same place on the road in the campground, several times during a single day.  My husband and I were concerned someone would accidently run over the squirrel, and we kept trying to figure out why it was lying there.

We theorized that maybe another squirrel had been hit there, and this one was grieving for it.  Or perhaps someone had spilled a sugary drink there, and the squirrel could smell it.  We even discussed washing down that spot in the road to get rid of any smell.

Then we noticed other squirrels doing it on other spots in the road.

Finally, we did a bit of research…

Apparently, lying flat on a cool surface (like a shady campground road) helps squirrels cool down by dissipating their body heat.

Mystery solved.

I love the odd little bits of knowledge we gather in our travels!