In addition to hundreds of thousands of people, several animal species are also falling victim to climate change. One of these is the squirrel, who uses and abuses lying on the ground to cope with the heat.
This behavior is used by some animals cool body temperature. Squirrels seek out cool surfaces and will spread their legs on their stomachs to cool off.
“They’re trying to find a cool place, and if they can get as much of their core body into a cool space as possible, heat will transfer from their body to the other surface,” explains Sunny Corrao of the City of Parks and Recreation Department . New York, to NPR.
But it’s not just squirrels that are spreading, a release from the United States National Park Service shows. bears and turtles including domestic dogs and cats:
Although it looks silly and cute, it can be a sign that squirrels are experimenting. much higher temperatures than they are used to due to climate change. Carlos Botero, associate professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin, says, “The temperatures we are currently experiencing are just above the typical hardiness of this animal.”
Lying around is enough for squirrels to cool off for now, but “there’s a limit to heat loss, just like humans do,” explains animal physiologist Andrea Rummel, an assistant professor of life sciences at Rice University.
“Sweating usually works great. But when it’s very humid outside, you can sweat as much as you want, but the sweat doesn’t evaporate and doesn’t take the heat with you. As a result, it becomes increasingly difficult for the squirrels to “expand effectively to make humans sweat effectively as temperatures rise.”