It’s a rough world out there for our sciurine friends, and sometimes survival comes at the 
cost of a few bumps and cruises or scars.
For the truly unfortunate who get into some really heated scraps, intra and interspecies conflict might even cost them a body part of two.
I met such a squirrel at the park back in the Fall of 2019, and though I didn’t notice his glaring deformity while I was there, I sure couldn’t miss it after I got home and went through the photos. And to think, the first pic I took of him gave no indication of what he had been through…
Just seems like another ordinary squirrel on an ordinary day at my ordinary park…
Hi there!
Does he really not have a right ear, or is it just folded back somehow?
Speak up, I can’t hear you!
I’d definitely say there’s no ear there at all! Poor guy, I wonder how it happened?
I’ve mentioned many times before that I’m terrible at recognizing a squirrel I’ve seen before… but with a feature (or lack thereof) like that, he’d be hard to miss if I ever saw him again.
Fast forward 14 months later to December 2020….
No, I’m pretty sure we haven’t meet.
Unless there just happen to be two squirrels running around the park missing their right ear, that has to be the same squirrel I met in October 2019! Squirrels in the wild don’t have very long life expectancies…. but maybe in the local park, even a one-eared squirrel can have a good long go at it!
Anyone got some Lee Press On Ears?
This is certainly one special little squirrel who I was quite fortunate to meet twice! Definitely a fine pick to lead off the Top 30 of my All Time Saturday Squirrel countdown!
Did you come to look at the leaves, or me?
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
This guy may have had a past mishap but the peaceful park may have provided him fewer confrontations with other squirrels – with all those trees there may be plenty of acorns for all !!
Pam
I’ve seen plenty of chasing and roughhousing at the park, and let’s not forget the park’s serial ear notcher. I hope this wasn’t a macabre example of their work…
this special guy ear-ned our attention… love him :=)
Poor little warrior. Losing body parts is hard, but he wears it well.
I wonder if there’s a black market for squirrel ears now?
I sincerely hope not.
Poor little guy! He really needed that ear. I hope he survives.
I haven’t come across a squirrel like that again in the past two years, but you never know…
Whoa…must have been quite the battle, I think I even see a little notch out of the remaining one.
I have two with abbreviated tails. One has a tail about an inch long. The other one has roughly half a tail. I wonder how that happened to them, too. Poor little guys. Unless they were born like that, it had to have hurt. ☹️
I bet there’s a tail-less cat stumbling around somewhere. “You should see the other guy…”
I have no ear to lend you.
I’ll bet there’s a beak-shaped scar on that squirrel’s noggin….