independent.co.uk

The males may spend time above ground ‘simply to loaf or bask in the sun’

Ian Johnston Science Correspondent Tuesday 04 October 2016 14:46 BST

Male Arctic ground squirrels may loaf around in the sun, while the females rush around to get food

 (Rex)

The males appear to spend hours loafing around in the sun, while the females rush about, gathering supplies and looking after the kids.

Try as you might, it’s hard not to draw comparisons between a new study about the lives of Arctic ground squirrels and human beings.

Researchers fitted tracking devices to the squirrels to monitor their activity and found that the females tended to be significantly more active than the males – although the squirrel with the highest average activity level was male.

But he appears to have been very much out of step with most of his male friends, who were about half as energetic.

Writing in the Royal Society Open Science journal, the US researchers said: “For much of our study, we found that both sexes spent similar amounts of time above ground, but females were consistently more active.

“It is not clear what [the males] are doing while above ground … it is possible that time above ground serves some sort of social function, such as the establishment and/or persistence of territories.

“The additional time spent above ground may be simply to loaf or bask in the sun. In small mammals, basking behaviour has been commonly reported as a means of passive rewarming from torpor.”

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