Grewia tiliifolia.
3.6 Feeding posture
Mainly three postures were observed during the present study. The most
common feeding posture is the squirrel perching itself on a horizontal
branch of the tree and feeding, second posture is that of the animal
hanging upside down from small branches, supporting with the hind limbs
and the tail, and reaching down to the food in the hanging posture. The
third feeding posture had the squirrel on the bole of the tree and
feeding upside down.
During most of the instances of observations on feeding posture, the
squirrels were found feeding by sitting on the branch, holding the
branch with hind limbs and the tail hanging down. The hanging tail helps
the animal in balancing the body. This kind of posture was observed
during the feeding incidence of Bauhinia racemosa andGrewia tiliifolia (Figure 5A). The second body posture consisted
of GGS feeding while hanging upside down on the tree branch with the
help of claws of hind limbs, while the tail was kept curled over the
branch. This posture was observed mainly in instances of feeding
clustered fruits and flowers on small branches which cannot support the
body weight of the squirrel. Sometimes this posture was used only for
harvest. This was observed while GGS was feeding on Strychnos
potatorum and Nothopegia beddomei (Figure 5B).
The third feeding posture observed was a GGS lying on the vertical bole
of the tree, anchoring onto the tree trunk with the claws of the hind
limbs and manipulating the food with mouth and forelimbs (Figure 5C).
The observed instances are while feeding on the climbers found on the
trees or the barks.