Spruce Seed as a Food of Red Squirrels and Flying Squirrels in Interior Alaska

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Abstract
Feeding trials conducted from Nov., 1962, through June, 1963, in an outdoor enclosure on the University of Alaska campus revealed that red squirrels (Tam-iasciurus hudsonicus) can survive for 3 weeks and possibly longer on nothing but white spruce (Picea glauca) seeds. Under such conditions they consume about 144 cones per day per squirrel. Flying squirrels (Glaucomys sabrinus) do poorly on white spruce seeds and, unlike red squirrels, probably do not consume large quantities of them in the wild. Red squirrels lose weight rapidly when given nothing but black spruce (Picea mariana) cones and show a marked preference for white spruce cones over black spruce cones, possibly because white spruce seeds are larger and have higher caloric content. Red squirrels scatter about one filled seed for every two cones they strip, but it is unlikely that many of these scattered seeds successfully germinate.

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