How do squirrels find buried nuts?

Question

Today I looked out my window to a foot of snow and ice on the ground. Then a squirrel came out, walked around the snow, and just stopped at a point and began digging. At first I thought this had to be a fruitless attempt. The squirrel was digging for about 10 minutes through snow twice as deep as itself. Then, unbelievably, the squirrel came out with an acorn! How do they find them? Is it memory, smell, or just pure instinct. This question really has me stumped.

Answer 1

They don't always find them all which is why there are so many oak trees around!

Answer 2

every single animal can do that. They have a ummmm sort of map in there head, an example, when you walk somewhere that you've never been too, you look for something like a tree and you remember what the tree looks like so you can find your way back, those animals already have those things implanted. If they chop the tree you wouldn't be able to find your way back, but even if they did chop the tree the animal is able to find it's way back, even without the tree. It's internal, they don't reply on simple objects or things to tell them where they are. I know it might sound a bit crazy but i learned it in AP Biology

Answer 3

They have a keen sense of smell!! squirrels are highly intellegent amazing little creatures. They also have an amazing memory. Just watch them figure out bird feeders!!!

Answer 4

I  think they have some great memory

they have to have to live

Answer 5

a certain part of the squirrel's brain actually expands to almost 2x it's original size during the fall season. with this enlarged part of the brain, the squirrel can then store more memory and information in there, letting him remember where he hid his stash the season before. (although, squirrels do forget up to 50% of where they hid there acorns or whatever they hid. this is due to the shrinking of this certain part of the brain)

Answer 6

I'm not sure if its the same for squirrels but for nut-caching birds they have an amazing memory. They have place cells in their brain which fire when the bird is in a particular location. (we also have this but our brain isn't organized to support such vivid, complex memory of places).These place cells make up a mental 'map' of its surroundings..so it encodes its environments in its brain. It remembers where it has hidden nuts on this map. Then when it wants to find nuts again, it flies around and the neurons kind of act like a hotter/warmer thing..So when it gets closer to where a nut is they start firing more..until they reach maximum firing rate when the bird is at the correct position. Pretty amazing - well i think so anyway!

I would imagine squirrels use a similar sort of thing? But I might be wrong?