Squirrel steps per peanut @ 25 F.

[Guv]

My girlfriend and I feed squirrels who live in our apartment complex. The squirrels recognize us on sight and know our voices.

Several times last winter I noticed two squirrels who had a nest somewhere near the roof of the building opposite our apartment. When they saw or heard us they ran along the roof, hopped to a tree, climbed down, and ran over to get some nuts from us. Most of the time we have unshelled peanuts, sometimes unshelled walnuts or pecans.

Today, I started to wonder about the squirrel efficiency of this process. They have to run about 25 yards (approx 25 meters), climb down about 10 yards/meters, get a few nuts and retrace their steps to get back to the nest.

What is the energy break even point here? When the temperature is about 25 F (- 4C), how much energy do they expend getting to us and getting home and maintaining body temperature? How much energy do they get from a peanut?

Does anybody study this kind of problem? Does anybody have an estimate for squirrel steps per peanut?

[Active]

It all depends on the calorific value of the nuts !

BTW...Girlfriend ??
I thought you must be 40+ years old.

Not that you should'nt have a girlfriend at that age...but
it's pretty much unusual.

[Active]

It seems almond has the highest calorific value among nuts !!!

http://naturalhub.com/natural_food_g...uts_common.htm

[HarryW]

Peanuts are packed with oil, and that means lots of calories. I believe there have been some plans to make a fuel out of them in the past, I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps it was something to do with wartime fuel shortages... or perhaps I just remember wrongly.

[Guv]

Active: I am a lot older than 40, which is why I call myself the Dinosaur. I date back to prehistoric times when there were no computers.

The first programming I did was for a device called a Card Programmed Calculator. The program was on cards because there was not enough memory to store a program. You probably never heard of punched cards.

You must be pretty young to consider it unusual to have a girlfriend at 40+

When I was only 40+, I had several.

[HarryW]

What a stud

Deathfrog, I guess you're talking about the American education system since you're using Americanese language, but we did that at my school too, here in the UK. Except my peanut refused to light if I remember correctly.

[Deathfrog]

Yeah, the majority of my class couldnt light the match without help let alone get that penut flaring... and im not joking, there were at least 4 preps who went down to the nurses office cause they got "burned" what a crock of.... oh well... i guess having survival skills makes you laugh a little louder at the City people...

[Kzin]

What is the energy break even point here? When the temperature is about 25 F (- 4C), how much energy do they expend getting to us and getting home and maintaining body temperature? How much energy do they get from a peanut?

>Does anybody study this kind of problem?
Yes, Zoologists study this kind of thing fairly regularly and use the data to feed models of foraging behaviour etc. You can get an estimate of energy useage by measuring carbon dioxide production of animals running in a wheel.

>Does anybody have an estimate for squirrel steps per peanut?
Remember each nut represents about 1% of the squirrel's body weight (200g squirrel 2g nut) so thats about equivqlent of a 100Kg person eating a big (1Kg) jar of peanut butter (yes I know they have a faster metabolic rate [heartbeat could be up to 600 beats per minute], higher surface to area ratio [so higher heat loss] etc - that is just an initial observation)

Local squirrels seem to have taken a different route where I live - I found a huge pile of beech nuts on top of the engine of my car one day in late autumn (probably seemed like a good idea at the time if you are a rodent with a brain the size of a peanut) and this spring 'someone' ate the crankcase breather hose - mechanics say it was mice but I like to think it was the same squirrel back for revenge . . .

[CiberTHuG]

Well, Kzin, to my cat, I'm just a piece of self-mobile funiture. I would imagine that the squirrels have to adapt. To him, your car is just a large, cold tree, one which he finds it hard to make new holds, but loves the sheer number that are already present.

How long did your car sit there? My moves all the time, but that's me.

[Kzin]

Originally posted by CiberTHuG
Well, Kzin, to my cat, I'm just a piece of self-mobile funiture. I would imagine that the squirrels have to adapt. To him, your car is just a large, cold tree, one which he finds it hard to make new holds, but loves the sheer number that are already present.

How long did your car sit there? My moves all the time, but that's me.

Thinking about it, it could have been there for weeks while our furry friend stocked it up!!

There are literally hundreds of trees that this unfortunate rodent could have chosen - I wonder whether he figured that it was safer from predators - do foxes eat squirrels? - I bet badgers don't