Concerned calls to wildlife hotlines have been spiking.
If you looked out your front window and saw a squirrel stretched out spread-eagle and motionless on your lawn, you’d likely think it met some untimely end. Really, though, it’s probably just splooting.record-breaking heat waveAlison Hermance of WildCare in San Rafael said that amid sweltering temperatures, the wildlife hospital’s hotline has “been receiving lots of calls about hot animals, including concerns about squirrels ‘spread out flat.’”.
To sploot, squirrels stretch themselves out on the ground and remain completely motionless. Their goal is to get as much of their surface area in contact with the ground as possible. This helps to dump heat from their bodies into the environment, cooling them down. Splooting is also sometimes called “It turns out that splooting is a normal and natural behavior.
When Jennifer Modenessi of the Lindsay Wildlife Experience in Walnut Creek first saw a squirrel smashing its body into the pavement in front of the museum’s facility, she says, “I didn’t know splooting was a thing, and I thought something was wrong with it.” Hermance says that “I don’t think the term ‘sploot’ is in common usage” in the Bay Area yet, but lots of people are reaching out with concerns about squirrels and other animals, and their hotline has been extra busy. Lindsay Wildlife has also begun receiving splooting-related calls.
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