Chapter 11

The Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel is in the Animalia kingdom, Chordata phylum, Vertebrata subphylum, Mammalia class, Rodentia order, Sciuridae family, Glaucomys genus, and sabrinus species, fuscus subspecies.

The Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel has adapted multiple methods to adapt to their environment. To survive the winter, the squirrels have developed community habits and cluster together in groups of 2-5 on average, but have been seen to cluster into a group of up to 50. Of course, the most notable adaptation of the squirrel is its membrane that stretches from their wrist to their ankle, which allows them to glide from tree to tree. With this membrane they don’t have to use the ground to reach new trees, thus are less susceptible to attacks from predators. An unknown trait of the squirrel is their ability to find truffles. They are able to find the truffles using visual clues and by remembering where truffles were found last, as well as searching for them by smell.

The trait that can be utilized and exploited for profit is definitely the ability to find truffles. Truffles are a delicacy in the culinary world that can be sold for large sums of money. Currently, pigs and dogs are used to retrieve truffles, and maintenance costs for these animals may not outweigh the price of finding truffles, but it can be dramatically reduced by using squirrels instead. Squirrels are supremely easier to take care of than either dogs or pigs, and require substantially less food.

To exploit this trait of the squirrel, we would have to utilize selective breeding. To do this we’ll test out the ability to search for truffles of many of these squirrels with timed trials, and then only allow the best of these to breed. From the offspring we will repeat the process until we are able to produce a squirrel capable of locating truffles expediently.

I don’t believe there would be a possibility of an offshoot species because while we are breeding them only for their smell, which doesn’t affect their mating or social habits.

In all, I think that this is a wonderful idea, and should be exploited to its fullest. By exploiting these squirrels with selective breeding we can gain profits for the company without harming the species at all. We actually may be able to increase the species’ ability to forage. This idea could place this company in an extremely equitable position. When the squirrels are refined people will be clamoring to purchase some for their own farms, but I think that the best way of working this is to use our squirrels to find truffles and sell them ourselves.