While talking with an acquaintance at the Market House yesterday, we glanced out one of the windows at the northeast end of the Market House at a chubby, furry moving object. Until the critter began climbing the telephone pole across Avenue I, we thought it could be a huge rat. Once he got to the rooftop of the building, mystery solved.

We named him “Stubby” the squirrel with no tail. Yepper, this chubby critter has no tail.

After an Internet search, here’s what we find out about squirrels with no tails:

“Squirrels without tails are usually a genetic defect. Basically, too many squirrels inbreeding in their gene pool. It happens more often where there is ample feeding in a neighborhood, and many otherwise weak offspring would have died. These squirrels also seem to get “picked on” by their tail waving brethren, due to not having a tail to flap and wriggle in communication. The tail also acts like a little parachute when they jump from branch to branch, and a tail free squirrel would be deprived of this balancing assistance. In the winter the tail helps warm them, so they would be more susceptible to the cold.

“But bottom line – can it survive? Yes. If you are seeing squirrels without tails, you will probably also start seeing ones with stubs of fluff, and just slightly less long and fluffy tails than usual. Sometimes the genetics improves with succeeding generations.”

“Did you know that the origin of the word ‘curtail’ is likely the Middle French word ‘courtault,’ which means an animal with a docked tail?” – SOURCE: nutsaboutsquirrels.com