{"id":253028,"date":"2025-10-26T16:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T16:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/253028\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T16:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T16:51:09","slug":"fat-squirrel-week-winner-waddles-in-from-north-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/253028\/","title":{"rendered":"Fat Squirrel Week winner waddles in from North Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fattest, baddest, nut-loving squirrel around doesn’t just live in North Texas \u2014 he rules all of Texas’ state parks.<\/p>\n

After out-chonking the competition in an online vote, this plump little legend \u2014 Chunkosaurus Rex of Dinosaur Valley State Park<\/a> near Glen Rose \u2014 has claimed the crown as Fat Squirrel Week champion.<\/p>\n

His stomping grounds lie about 60 miles southwest of downtown Fort Worth, in a park known for its prehistoric past.<\/p>\n

A bracket of bushy-tailed beasts<\/p>\n

Hosted by Texas Parks and Wildlife, the quirky contest featured 16 squirrels from state parks across the state, each vying in a bracket-style competition for the title of Texas’ heftiest rodent.<\/p>\n

Inspired by Alaska’s famed Fat Bear Week, the event celebrates wildlife bulking up for winter \u2014 and gives the public a fun excuse to root for their favorite chunky contender.<\/p>\n

\"rex.jpg<\/p>\n

Whitney Bishop \/ Texas Parks & Wildlife<\/p>\n

Final four full of fluff<\/p>\n

In addition to Chunkosaurus Rex, the final four fluffballs included Chunk Norris from Fort Richardson State Park<\/a>, Nutella from Lake Mineral Wells State Park<\/a>, and Stanley “The Texas Tank” from Cleburne State Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The winner beat out Chunk Norris in the finale.<\/p>\n

Social media fuels the frenzy<\/p>\n

Each squirrel earned its spot thanks to a standout seasonal physique and a whole lot of personality. Their photos quickly took off on social media, where fans followed the fluff-filled face-off using the hashtag #TexasFatSquirrels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fattest, baddest, nut-loving squirrel around doesn’t just live in North Texas \u2014 he rules all of Texas’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[33580,79,1022,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-253028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-north-texas","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}