{"id":84551,"date":"2020-04-29T05:11:30","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T11:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=84551"},"modified":"2020-04-29T06:01:51","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T12:01:51","slug":"uinta-ground-squirrel-eating-a-squirming-earthworm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/29\/uinta-ground-squirrel-eating-a-squirming-earthworm\/","title":{"rendered":"Uinta Ground Squirrel Eating A Squirming Earthworm"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you pay attention you just never know what you’ll encounter “out there”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Two days ago while looking for birds in the mountains we found this Uinta Ground Squirrel beginning to enjoy “his” earthworm breakfast. I’ve photographed this species eating various kinds of vegetation countless times in the past but apparently this feller felt the need for some additional springtime protein.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The worm was a slippery squirmer as most earthworms are in situations like this. But given the grasping and manipulative effectiveness of the rodent’s “hands” it didn’t have a chance of escape.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Notice that the squirrel began his meal at the anterior or head end of the worm which tends to be darker in color and a little more robust than the posterior end.<\/p>\n

A lighter colored reproductive organ called the clitellum is closer to the anterior end and is typically used to distinguish the “head” end from the “tail” end but in this photo most of the clitellum is hidden by the rodent’s grasping paws. In fact he appears to be using the clitellum as a “handle” of sorts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But after much of the anterior end had been eaten the squirrel turned the worm around and began to work on the posterior end. That allowed us to see the clitellum, the lighter colored swelling covering several segments nearer to the head end.<\/p>\n

I can only guess why the squirrel turned the worm around but he appeared to.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As he continued to munch away the remnants of the worm became shorter and shorter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Not much left now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nothing left but the crumbs. Here he’s still chewing the last wormy morsel.<\/p>\n

Uinta Ground Squirrels are primarily herbivores, eating mostly grass, seeds and leaves (on this same morning I photographed them eating both grass and sagebrush) but they’re also known to eat a small amount of earthworms and even discarded human food.<\/p>\n

But worms for breakfast – this was a first for me so it was fun to get documentary photos.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note: The clitellum has a reproductive function when hermaphroditic earthworms reproduce sexually. When the worms mate the clitellum secretes the protective cocoon around their fertilized eggs. You may have found some of those egg-filled cocoons while digging in your garden.<\/em><\/p>\n

But then you probably remembered that from your high school biology…<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you pay attention you just never know what you’ll encounter “out there”.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2195],"tags":[5081,107,5080,5079,2198,4020,311],"class_list":["post-84551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ground-squirrels-gophers","tag-clitellum","tag-diet","tag-earthworm-anatomy","tag-eating-an-earthworm","tag-uinta-ground-squirrel","tag-urocitellus-armatus","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uinta-ground-squirrel-8807-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-lZJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}