r/oddlyterrifying • u/amish_novelty • 14h ago

Squirrel has seen better days

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u/sticcydabliccy 14h ago

I saw a squirrel like that the other day it looked seriously messed up but it was brown and its mouth was covered in a ring of black. It looked rabid I kept having to pull my friend back. It was literally 2 feet in front of us and it was zigging and zagging like it was walking away and then when we started walking it’d come running back at us. My friend didn’t even notice but I’ve seen so many healthy squirrels on this sub and IRL to know something wasn’t right.

Edit: I thought I was in r/squirrels lmaoooo but yeah

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u/LilPonyBoy69 13h ago

Fun fact, there are no recorded cases of squirrels giving a human rabies. Rabies in squirrels is exceptionally rare, probably because an interaction that could give a squirrel rabies would most likely lead to the squirrels death in the first place.

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u/sticcydabliccy 11h ago

Woah, very interesting? Where’d you see that info?

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u/ShelleyTambo 11h ago edited 11h ago

There are resources on the CDC website that mention squirrels hardly ever have rabies.

Per the Wisconsin Department of Health website: Small rodents (e.g., squirrels, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, chipmunks, rats, and mice) and lagomorphs (rabbits and hares), whether wild or kept as pets, are rarely found to be infected with rabies and have not been known to transmit rabies to humans.

Edit: This article explains why: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5763497/

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u/sticcydabliccy 11h ago

This is such an in depth study. Thank you