Spot the palm squirrel!

December 30, 2014 • 8:30 am

I’ve become quite enamored with the local squirrel-equivalent here, the northern palm squirrel, which has the appropriate Latin binomial of Funambulus pennantii. As one reader pointed out yesterday, it looks like a chipmunk, but with a bushy tail, and acts like a European squirrel, living in trees and apparently able—as I observed in the gorgeous Lodi Gardens today—to easily climb straight up the walls of a Muslim tomb. Here’s one that I photographed:

Sqrl

A reader also said they’re sacred to Hindus, and I asked about that. They’re not really sacred in the same sense as cows are, but, as recounted in the Ramayana, they do figure in Hindu mythology. When Prince Rama (an incarnation of Vishnu) found that his wife Sita had been kidnapped by the evil Ravana, his friends, including Hanuman the monkey god and even a lowly palm squirrel, helped construct a bridge to Lanka (Sri Lanka, the abode of Ravana), and rescued Sita.

In return, Rama gratefully patted the palm squirrel on its back, and his handprints became the squirrel’s stripes. And that, O Best Beloved, is How the Palm Squirrel Got His Stripes. You won’t read that in the Just So Stories, but the mythology is real.  And here’s the squirrel’s divine pat on the back:

sqrl 2

Now to the point of this post. Both of the photos below have a hidden palm squirrel in them. Can you spot it? The first was taken at the Indian Cultural Centre:

Spot 1

This one was taken on a 15th-century tomb at the Lodi Gardens. Can you spot the squirrelS here? There are actually TWO  THREE, two much easier to see than the other.

Spot 2

 

71 thoughts on “Spot the palm squirrel!”

    1. Are you teasing about the second squirrel in photo 2? I’m not seeing it! There are some squirrel-looking shadows in the cranny, upper-left … and I thought I was a good spotter!

          2. THAT IS CRAZY! I zoomed in on that picture earlier and saw just the one on the ledge – now that I know where to look, I see all three! And each is cuter than the last.

          4. Me, too. Although, now on my iPad I can see them – in fact, I inspected the upper left one closely on the iPad and concluded it was a tick of the light and not a squirrel.

            On my PC they are plain as day. Makes me wonder how many nightjars I’ve been missing … !

          5. My excuse is that once I found the squirrel, I didn’t look for more. I figure it is just how my brain behaves efficiently. I’m prosbably easily duped that way.

          1. Oh – I found the third one! Three cute squirrels, ha ha ha, as The Count would say on Sesame Street!

          3. There are 3 on the wall. At first I thought Monika was messing with me, but no there are 3 squirrels. She has the eye.

          6. 🙂

            Someone should write a Ph.D on the psychological effect of intimidating avatars.

            Sort of a visual Darth Vader theme everytime you enter the room.

  6. I grinned when I saw “And that, O Best Beloved, is How the Palm Squirrel Got His Stripes.”

    I loved the Just So tales and they were one of the first inklings I had that religious myths were nothing but stories.

    1. When I was a kid, I read an Indian (in this sense what Canadians would call “First Nations” or “Aboriginal” and Americans would call “American Indian”) tale about how the chipmunk got its strips – a bear scratched it. I was angry at the story. I thought it was obvious that you couldn’t get scratched then pass those scratches down to offspring. I didn’t know what Lamarckism was, but I was pretty pissed at it already. 🙂

      2. Evolution would work so much better if it was Lamarckian rather than Darwininan, though, wouldn’t it? 😉

          2. It’s not so much what he says, as what he does — he intelligently designs organisms and their genomes.

            Of course, so did Luther Burbank and Gregor Mendel and pretty much every farmer in the history of humanity.

            But what Craig is doing is special and unprecedented. Indeed, his labs house the only known truly alien life on the planet — the only organisms with which you do not share a common ancestor. They’re the first true designer organisms…and the potential for future designed organisms is truly mind-blowing.

            Again, because it’ll be intelligently designed….

            b&

          3. [a sigh of relief…]

            For a moment I feared that he’d turned out to be an IDiot…

            Yes, synthetic genomics is a good example of truly intelligent design, but there is still some plagiarism involved :-).

  7. How big are these squirrels? The look a bit smaller than Eastern Grey Squirrels. I’m guessing, about the size of American Red Squirrels.

      1. I think they are probably about the size of American red squirrels then as they typically fall in between chipmunks and eastern grey squirrels. I hope you get to see an American Red soon as they are cute but ornery. Usually they live in pine forests and aren’t seen in urban landscapes. I occassionally get one at my feeder and I’m always amused by them because they display behaviour that we’d call “squirrely” – running around all over the place. They don’t like other squirrels around them and will aggresively chase the bigger eastern gray squirrels.

        1. We have a little red squirrel we call Squirt who always dominates all the critters around our bird feeder. He doesn’t seem to show up every day, but when he does, even the blue jays seem to take off. Yesterday we had two gorgeous bright red male cardinals and two jays all at the bird feeder or bird bath at the same time. Wish we could have got a photo.

          1. There is just something so appealing about those angry little red guys. I’ve hiked through pine forests & I often hear them chattering angrily at me. I guess it is amazing how such a small animal can be so bossy.

          2. Are those the same as the European red squirrels? In Poland, they are not as ubiquitous as grey squirrels are here, but they often reside in public parks. Feeding hazelnuts to little red squirrels in the park is the rite of passage for any 3-year old (and one of the fondest memories from my childhood).

          3. I checked in Wikipedia – turns out those are two different species (and even two different genera). I don’t think I’ve ever seen an American red squirrel.

          4. Yes and I’ve not seen the European ones though they look very cute with their tufty ears.

        2. I’ve been reading Hornaday’s ‘Our Vanishing Wildlife’, a strange classic of conservation literature mainly aimed at state and federal legislators in the US. Hornaday thought grey squirrels should be absolutely protected but that reds should be shot as vermin. Weirdo.

    1. The sort of look like chipmunks, very cute. Reminds me a little of the sugar glider family that lives in the lamp post outside of my parents’ house. They’ve evaded authorities for a long time. It worries me that they really don’t belong in North Carolina or North America, for that matter.

  9. The bush picture with squirrel(s) appears to be mostly a jade plant. Those little plants we grow indoors near a window here get big when they can grow outside. They are commonly used as hedges.

    Anyway, I think there might be a 2nd squirrel in that picture. Peeking out from behind a thick, vertical branch in the background.

  11. I’m not religious, but just wanted to point out that that story’s actually not written. The Ramayana, despite being a written text, has evolved orally in folks traditions for millennia.

    With that out of the way, I remember going to Delhi the summer after I had heard that story from an acquaintance. I had also taken AP Bio, so I took a picture of the squirrel and posted it on my acquaintance’s wall with the caption: “LAMARCK WAS WRONG!”. It got quite a few likes.

    3. You hold them still and I’ll use the paint hosepipe.
      What could possibly go wrong?

      1. Well, if the plan is to cover me in squirrel-tooth-shaped paint-colored tattoos, I can’t think of anything that would go awry….

        b&

  14. I think I see five on the wall.

    In the upper right corner, just the head peeking around the stone.

    In the lower left corner, there is a sort of stripey-looking blotch on the ledge.

  15. Concerning the Lord Rama: I am curious. Since all “recent” religious Middle Eastern religious tenets seems to source in paganism could it be that the “Lord Rama” has roots for the pagan Arabs who practiced Ramadan which led to the Muslim practice?

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