Photo taken: August 23, 2013
This squirrel looks pretty happy. You know why he’s so happy? He’s got a little secret. You see, he’s not quite as normal as he seems. Check out his tails. Yes, I said tails… plural! Dafuq!?!? What kind of nuclear reactor has this squirrel built his nest in? There’s two tails there… plain as day! I’m pretty sure this squirrel didn’t actually have twin tails when I took this photo… how could I not notice that? This seems to be a case of double exposure due to some really fast tail wagging. One of my old time (and sorely missed) followers The Pensive Squirrel used his knowledge of photo processing to pose his theory on how this strange illusion happened when I first posted this in my Saturday Squirrel feature five years ago. Real or not, it’s still a rather amusing and befuddling photo!
I bet he’s the envy of all his little squirrel friends.
They probably get mad at him and pull his tails…
There’s actually a name for that, which i can’t remember at the moment … but it’s like when you take a picture of someone walking I you get more than one leg because the shutter was slow you captures the movement of the leg more than once. Motion something-or-other. There’s a proper name for it, but no one in this room knows the name. Something along the lines of “motion blur or streak” — but there’s another word for it that no one seems to remember. It’s when you are shooting in dim light and the shutter of your camera is actually slower than the movement of what you are shooting.
Or the squirrel had two tails.
The other blogger who tried to explain it to me five years ago also conceded that it would be much cooler if the squirrel really did have two tails. And if I could find him again, we’d hit the sideshow circuit…
I suspect this squirrel has a little friend sitting behind him on that limb so it’s a “double tail dangle” moment captured on film….either that or he’s one of life’s little mysteries!
Pam
I actually looked several times to see if there was any evidence of a hidden squirrel, but there’s a spot of sunlight behind the squirrel and no shadow to be found. Maybe he has one of those cosplay tails that plugs into….. um…. goes in……. er…. let’s forget about it.
Some things are better left………alone.
Given the low light I suspect a double exposure situation but, with all the unique raccoon tails and fox tails and other things you’ve discovered on squirrels, if there was a two-tailed squirrel, you’d be the person to capture its photo!
I must live near the squirrel Chernobyl with all of the mutant tails my critters have!
Do you have fox squirrels in your region? I don’t even know if gray squirrels can breed with fox squirrels but, if they can, some interbreeding might explain all those big, red tails you see in your area!
Who knew squirrels wagged their tails?
They don’t quite wag them like a dog, but they like to move them to keep cool and as a warning beacon. I’ve got a squirrel coming up sometime soon in this countdown whose tail was REALLY moving…
Cool!
Ooh! He looks just like Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog! I mean, except Tails is a fox and that is clearly not a fox. 😛
You never know… I swear some of my squirrels are actual hybrids with the strange markings and colors I’ve seen on them. I originally compared this squirrel to a kitsune, which is a nine tailed squirrel…. or four and a half Tails…