Handling A Squirrel King Situation

A squirrel king has been proven difficult to handle, as shown in recent pictures.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term ‘king’, in this context, it refers to when half a dozen rodents or more are entwined together and forced to move as one large mass of fluff.

Hearing about rodents connected by their tails, although worrying, is probably a less upsetting read then when scientists connected rats brains.

Many people have probably heard of the horror story of rat kings; however, not many will have heard of squirrels suffering from this phenomenon.

However, one of the on hand vets when this case was brought in, had seen this happen before:

“It’s a pretty rare thing to see but I have seen it happen once before.”

This wouldn’t be the first time people have questioned the antics of squirrels, as shown in The Inquisitr’s post about squirrel logic.

However, this is by far a more weird situation than previously reported squirrel activities.

The rare and odd occurrence came to the attention of vets in Regina, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, when a concerned local brought the tangled mass of squirrels into the nearest clinic.

Upon examination it was determined that the squirrel king, which consisted of six of the furry creatures, had happened because of pine sap.

The liquid had glued their tails together and had created this entangled result.

Despite how tricky the situation was, for both the squirrels and the vets, the squirrel king was carefully and time consumingly separated.

Furthermore, the incident didn’t result in any tail amputations, which is a rarity in itself because normally, if and when this type of occurrence happens, the tangled up tails are that badly joined together that many rodents have to lose their tails.

Dr. Kruzeniski, one of the vets who helped separate the squirrel king, commented:

“They were brought in quickly, […] They all got to keep their own tails, which is not always the case.”

The now separate six squirrels have been released back into the wild and can now go about their everyday business, which we image is about hiding and stashing away nuts.

No doubt their freedom from the dreaded squirrel king is something they’re pleased about.

[Image via MetroNews]