How do squirrels find buried nuts?

These busy little mammals use their heads more than their noses.


Asked by: Stephen Carter, Preston

It was once thought that they just used their noses to sniff out buried nuts and that the majority were never actually located. But a 1990 study at Princeton University showed that squirrels actually have a good memory and can build a map of the route from one hidden nut to the next. They still use smell to find the caches of other squirrels, but they find a lot more of their own by memory.

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