Crazy hoarding makes you a big fat ball! Check out the animals that love to "hoard food"

Severe cold weather is always more difficult for animals in nature to endure. Animals that hibernate, such as brown bears and marmots, will choose to find a comfortable place, have a good sleep, and when they open their eyes again, it will be spring and flowers will be blooming.

Marmot: Getting fierce Image source Wikimedia Commons

Some animals like to prepare for a rainy day and stockpile a large amount of food before winter comes to survive the long winter.

For example, humans are keen on hoarding various things, such as cabbage, radish, salt, etc. This hoarding behavior is not only a "psychological quirk" that humans cannot resist, but is also an instinctive behavior of animals to store food for later use. Today we will take stock of the small animals that like to "hoard food".

I rely on it to eat in winter. Image source: Baidu Pictures

01

Tree Squirrel: Broken,

I can't even find the food myself?

Squirrels are very typical food-hoarding animals. They will frantically search for and bury all kinds of nuts in summer, autumn and even winter. Their favorite food is oak acorns . In addition, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts and other nuts are also common foods for them.

Image credit: Corey Seeman

When a tree squirrel finds an acorn, it will first shake it to listen for weevils or other "parasites" inside. If it finds eggs or adult insects, the squirrel will generally eat the acorn directly on the spot (including the insects inside), because acorns infested by insects usually cannot be stored for too long.

A gray squirrel eats insect-infested seeds. Photo credit: Jason Fochtman

Correspondingly, acorns that are not damaged by insects are high-quality food and can be temporarily saved from being eaten and then hidden by squirrels. Interestingly, unlike most rodents that "centrally store" food, squirrels tend to "disperse hoarding", which is what we often say "don't put all your eggs in one basket".

Image credit: Neil Burton

The main reason squirrels adopt this hoarding behavior is to prevent their food from being stolen by other animals (mainly other squirrels). Therefore, when burying acorns, squirrels sometimes pretend to bury the food in the ground, but actually hold the acorns secretly in their hands. When the thief is not paying attention, they will immediately slip away and look for other storage places.

A squirrel observing its surroundings with an acorn in its mouth. Photo credit: Glenn Bailes

Although this can fool other squirrels, there is also a drawback: the squirrels that bury the acorns may not be able to find the acorns themselves. According to a 2017 study by the University of California, squirrels can build up to hundreds of "caches" in a year, but in the end only about 40% of the caches can be found again by the squirrels.

Most of the storage rooms that have not been found have become "forgotten corners", and are either discovered by other animals or sprout new buds and grow into new oak trees the following year. From this perspective, squirrels are actually spreading seeds for oak trees, which is a mutually beneficial relationship.

02

Honeypot Ant:

After I became fat, I became food

Like squirrels, many ants are also good at hoarding food. For example, a species of honeypot ants that live in dry and semi-arid areas has a special type of worker ants in its population, called honey storage ants. Most of these worker ants are infertile, and while other worker ants are working hard, they only need to do one thing: eat non-stop until they become a "big fat man."

The abdomen of the honey-storing ant is swollen. Image source: CRC For Honey Bee Products

At this time, the abdomen of the honey ant is like a balloon filled with water, filled with molasses. The honey ant, which has lost its ability to move, can only hang upside down at the bottom of the underground ant nest, and then they themselves become the "food storage room" of the ant colony.

Honey-storing ants that become "food" (Image source: NASA)

When food becomes scarce, hungry worker ants will walk over to the "food" and touch the antennae of the honey storage ants, telling them that it is time to feed them . The honey storage ants will then regurgitate the honey stored in their abdomens and spit it back out to feed the worker ants.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Generally speaking, the number of honey-storing ants in an ant colony can reach about half, which can help the entire ant colony through difficult times. The reason why honey-storing ants have the ability to store honey is that they have evolved a special structure in their abdomen that is specifically responsible for storing molasses.

Their abdomen is composed of hard bone pieces and soft joint membranes. When there is no molasses stored, the joint membranes will shrink and overlap the bone pieces, and from the outside, they look almost the same as ordinary worker ants. As they continue to eat, molasses begins to accumulate in their abdomens, and the folded joint membranes will open, separating the bone pieces. When the abdomen is filled with molasses, the honey storage ants become sweet and delicious "honey pots".

You can see the dark bone pieces of honey ants are stretched open by the joint membrane. Image source: Wikipedia

Moreover, this sweet and fragrant smell not only attracts worker ants, but also some local Aboriginal tribes in Australia regard it as a delicacy. They will dig out ant nests hidden underground and then directly suck the molasses from the abdomen of the honey-storing ants.

Australian locals collect honeypot ants. Image source: CRC For Honey Bee Products

03

Arctic Fox:

The natural big refrigerator is really useful

It is not uncommon for carnivores to store food, but this food usually only lasts a few days because it will rot and spoil after that, and carnivores still prefer to hunt fresh prey.

But Arctic foxes living in cold regions are different. They have a strong "stockpiling consciousness" and with the Arctic ice field, a "natural refrigerator", they hardly have to worry about food spoiling.

Every summer, a large number of birds migrate northward to the Arctic Circle to build nests and reproduce. At the same time, the number of Arctic lemmings also experiences explosive growth, providing abundant food for animals on the ice sheet.

A large number of birds breed here. Image source: Britannica

But the Arctic fox is not dazzled by this readily available buffet. Instead, in addition to hunting to meet their daily needs, the Arctic fox also hoards various bird eggs, up to 2,000 to 3,000 bird eggs per year, in case there is not enough food on the ice field in winter or even the following spring.

Arctic foxes collecting snow goose eggs. Image source: Britannica

Thanks to the permafrost on the Arctic ice sheet and the protection of the eggshell, the stored bird eggs can be preserved for up to a year after being buried. In this way, even in times of food shortage, Arctic foxes can rely on bird eggs to survive.

As for the Arctic fox's behavior of hoarding bird eggs, studies have shown that this is an adaptation to the environment, because the number of lemmings, the main food source of the Arctic fox, fluctuates greatly within a certain period, and this change is difficult to predict.

Therefore, bird eggs are a very good "reserve food" for Arctic foxes. They are not only abundant during the bird nesting season, but also very suitable for long-term storage.

A study published in the Journal of Animal Ecology showed that when there were fewer lemmings, bird eggs made up 74% of the Arctic fox's diet, but when there were more lemmings, bird eggs made up only 28% of the Arctic fox's diet.

This shows that in an environment where food abundance varies greatly with seasons and years, stockpiling food is an effective way to survive.

References:

1.Delgado Mikel M. and Jacobs Lucia F.2017Caching for where and what: evidence for a mnemonic strategy in a scatter-hoarderR. Soc. open sci.4170958170958.http://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170958

2.Hungry? Try a Honeypot Ant…

https://blogs.nasa.gov/whatonearth/2010/10/09/post_1286569125761/

3. V. Careau V. Careau, J.-F. Giroux https://doi.org/10.1139/Z08-102

4.Hoarding

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoarding_(animal_behavior)

Author: Fish

Winner of the Silver Award for Outstanding Science Popularization Works of China Science Writers Association

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