Grewia tiliifolia.

3.6 Feeding posture

Mainly three postures were observed during the present study. The most common feeding posture is the squirrel perching itself on a horizontal branch of the tree and feeding, second posture is that of the animal hanging upside down from small branches, supporting with the hind limbs and the tail, and reaching down to the food in the hanging posture. The third feeding posture had the squirrel on the bole of the tree and feeding upside down.
During most of the instances of observations on feeding posture, the squirrels were found feeding by sitting on the branch, holding the branch with hind limbs and the tail hanging down. The hanging tail helps the animal in balancing the body. This kind of posture was observed during the feeding incidence of Bauhinia racemosa andGrewia tiliifolia (Figure 5A). The second body posture consisted of GGS feeding while hanging upside down on the tree branch with the help of claws of hind limbs, while the tail was kept curled over the branch. This posture was observed mainly in instances of feeding clustered fruits and flowers on small branches which cannot support the body weight of the squirrel. Sometimes this posture was used only for harvest. This was observed while GGS was feeding on Strychnos potatorum and Nothopegia beddomei (Figure 5B).
The third feeding posture observed was a GGS lying on the vertical bole of the tree, anchoring onto the tree trunk with the claws of the hind limbs and manipulating the food with mouth and forelimbs (Figure 5C). The observed instances are while feeding on the climbers found on the trees or the barks.