Squirrels' diets c***ist primarily of a wide variety of plants, including nuts, seeds, conifer cones, fruits, fungi and green vegetation. However, some squirrels also c***ume meat, especially when faced with hunger. Squirrels have been known to eat insects, eggs, **all birds, young snakes and **aller rodents. Indeed, some tropical species have shifted almost entirely to a diet of insects.

Chipmunks have an omnivorous diet primarily c***isting of seeds, nuts and other fruits, and buds. They also commonly eat grass, shoots, and many other forms of plant matter, as well as fungi, insects and other arthropods, **all frogs, worms, and bird eggs.

Average lifespan

Six to eight years. However, many squirrels do not live past a year due to automobile accidents and food shortages. Some may live up to 12 years in captivity.

Chipmunks typically live about three years. They may live up to nine years in captivity.

Breeding

Squirrels breed once or twice a year and give birth to a varying number of young after three to six weeks.

Eastern chipmunks mate in early spring and again in early summer, producing litters of four or five young twice each year. Western chipmunks breed only once a year.

Offspring

The young are born naked, toothless, and blind. In most species of squirrel, only the female looks after the young.

The young do not open their eyes until 31 to 33 days of age. Generally females care for the young.