I used to work at Disney World and something I always found curious was when people would stop and huddle around a patch of grass and take pictures of squirrels. Living in the US, squirrels are, like, fine, but (I'm saying it) not remarkable.
1.What I didn't realize then is that the people visiting Disney World, from all around the world, were used to DIFFERENT squirrels. It turns out these creatures I pay little attention to look different in basically every country. It's wild, so here we go: A Tour de Squirrel.
2.Let's start in Canada. Squirrels there are black.
3.Germany has red squirrels with fun ear hair.
4.Coming at you from the Thai-Malay Peninsula, it's Prevost's squirrel, who said, "I want to be like the squirrel version of Neopolitan ice cream."
5.Squirrels in Mexico have lil' red spots on them.
6.Squirrels in Costa Rica step up the red and have fiery Pokémon-looking tails.
7.Brazilian squirrels opt for a nice walnut brown.
8.Squirrels in Russia need to keep their ears warm with impressive squirrel ear hair.
9.Squirrels in China look like they're wearing a little red apron.
10.Squirrels in Japan are, for some reason, exponentially more photogenic than other squirrels we've touched on.
11.Squirrels in India have STRIPES. They look like they want to be like skunks.
12.Here's another squirrel in India. It's the Malayan giant squirrel and OMFG look at how long that tail is.
13.Actually, India is home to three giant squirrel species and I know you'd be disappointed if I didn't show you the other two, so here's the Indian giant squirrel...
14....and the grizzled giant squirrel.
15.Squirrels in South Africa don't want to be excluded from the stripes party but opted for one singular racing stripe.
16.This Barbary ground squirrel from Spain also has stripes, but let's not ask it any questions because it looks like it doesn't want to be our friend.
17.Here's a picture of a squirrel in Switzerland that looks like it just came out of the Wind in the Willows.
18.Finally, here's a photo of a plain ol' grey squirrel from the US with a color mutation that turned it to a white squirrel.
TBH, if you see a squirrel wherever you live and want to add a picture in the comments below, please do. We can start a squirrel scrapbook. Who knew this is what we'd all be talking about today?
