Dubbed the \u201cvampire squirrel,\u201d the ruthless rodent is said to hurl itself onto the backs of passing deer, use its razor-sharp teeth to slash through the jugular vein and then leave the animals to bleed to death.<\/p>\n
Locals who have discovered disembowelled deer carcasses in forests believe that the squirrels then return to the kill site and feast on the deer\u2019s heart, liver and stomach contents.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in villages close to the forest\u2019s edge, tufted ground squirrels are said to kill domestic chickens and gorge on their hearts and livers.<\/p>\n
The squirrel rose to notoriety in 2014, after a 15-year-old girl called Emily Meijaard wrote an academic paper<\/a> about it with her parents.<\/p>\n The paper, which described the bloodthirsty folklore surrounding the animal, was published in the TAPROBANICA: The Journal of Asian Biodiversity.<\/p>\n And with that, an animal that had largely gone unnoticed for millennia, went viral. News stories were printed. Videos were posted. Beatrix Potter probably turned in her grave.<\/p>\n Then in 2015, they were caught on camera<\/a> for the very first time. They weren\u2019t savaging herbivores, though.<\/p>\n Instead, they were foraging in the undergrowth of the Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan. Hardly the actions of a killer, but more revelations were to come.<\/p>\n In 2020, researchers discovered<\/a> that the squirrels\u2019 bizarre teeth \u2013 which feature long incisors with deeply carved ridges on the upper and lower jaw \u2013 are, in fact, used to crack very tough nuts.<\/p>\n The tufted ground squirrel is actually an extremely specialised and dedicated seed predator, that relies heavily on the nuts of the canarium tree.<\/p>\n It seems that we got the tufted ground squirrel all wrong. They really are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.<\/p>\n So bushy-tailed in fact, that the furry appendage is 30 per cent bigger than their bodies, making it one of the most voluminous of all mammalian tails, relative to body size.<\/p>\n Why this is, no one really knows. It\u2019s not for balance, because the squirrel spends most of its time on the forest floor looking for food. It\u2019s not for insulation, because it rarely gets that cold in Borneo.<\/p>\n It could be to do with attracting a mate. It could have evolved<\/a> to distract predators. Or it could be a form of cryptic camouflage \u2013 the tail has a grizzled charcoal colour with white frosting which may help the squirrel blend in with the forest floor.<\/p>\n Whatever the reason, it\u2019s time we stopped slandering the tufted ground squirrel and instead learned to love it for the genuinely cute critter that it really, truly is.<\/p>\n To submit your questions, email us at questions@sciencefocus.com, or message our Facebook<\/a>, X<\/a>, or Instagram<\/a> pages (don’t forget to include your name and location).<\/p>\n Check out our ultimate fun facts<\/a> page for more mind-blowing science<\/p>\n Read more:<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Squirrel.jpg\")
The tufted ground squirrel shares its native Borneo with the prevost’s squirrel, a black, reddish brown and white fluff-ball that spends most of its time in the trees – Credit: Richard McManus via Getty<\/p>\n