6 Hoarding Animals

People collect things for all sorts of reasons - fun, utility, complusion... But it's little known that hoarding happens all over the animal kingdom. Here is a list of just a few animals whose stockpiles put your comic book collection to shame.

1. Hamster

Via en.wikipedia.org

On top of being able to stuff their cheeks with an inordinate amount of food and being ridiculously adorable, hamsters are larder hoarders. They take all the food they find back to a central location and stash it to snack on later.

2. Plains Viscacha

Via animaltoday.tumblr.com

These rodents live with their families in huge interconnected burrows. They look like little bandits, so it's excusable that their collections are a bit dull. Viscacha collect hundreds of sticks and pile them around the entrance to their burrows, presumably to deter predators.

3. Squirrels

Via en.wikipedia.org

This list wouldn't be complete without the squirrel. Most species of squirrel are scatter hoarders with means they will hide food in many locations over their home range. The fox squirrel (pictured here) will squirrel away acorns, hickory nuts, beechnuts, walnuts, butternuts to save them for winter.

4. Crows and Ravens

These bird, known as corvids, feed on pretty much anything and will stash surplus food if it's high in fat. They are scatter hoarders, and will raid the food stashes of foxes, wolves and other birds. They are super intelligent and SNEAKY! In fact, they watch other birds store food and come back to that spot later to steal from them. Young Ravens are known to steal and cache shiny objects such as pebbles, pieces of metal, and golf balls just for fun.

5. White-throated woodrats

sciencenews.org

A member of the Packrat family, these little guys are compulsive hoarders. They live alone and fill their nests with anything they can get their paws on. Alongside the expected food and nest materials, researchers have found an old underwear band, jewelery, shotgun shells, Doritos bags and more in woodrat nests.

6. Bower bird

youtube.com / Via youtube.com

Bower birds take collecting to the next level. The male creates a bower and fills it with huge numbers of colourful items from around the forest, carefully organised into piles. The female then comes and inspects the collection, and if she likes it, the male will get lucky.