On April 20, Simona Juškevičiūtė, who went to the forest in Jurbarkas district to look for moose after it stopped snowing, was surprised to find not spring mushrooms, but yellowing squirrels in the distance.
The first squirrels appeared in Jurbarkas district
(4 photos)
The first squirrels in the forest (photo: Simona Juškevičiūtė)
The first squirrels in the forest (photo: Simona Juškevičiūtė)
The first squirrels in the forest (photo: Simona Juškevičiūtė)
The first squirrels in the forest (photo: Simona Juškevičiūtė)
The first single squirrels appeared in the forest
When a photo of several grown-up squirrels was shared in a group of mushroom pickers on social networks, many were surprised and did not believe that it was true, so the woman even took a photo with the news of the day to prove that nature played a joke.
However, is it normal to find squirrels at such a time, or is it completely unusual? According to naturalist Almantas Kulbis, the time for these mushrooms is still really early, but this is not a particularly exceptional case.
“Because we’ve had quite a bit of heat, mycelium is always present on the forest floor, and the mushroom fruiting body itself starts to grow when there’s enough heat. The very first fruiting bodies could already appear, because there were warm and even very warm, record-breaking days.
Their mass appearance will happen as it always does, starting around midsummer. Of course, this case is unusual, but since it was very warm, the mushrooms could appear.
The fungus is not a completely autonomous organism, but the first fruiting bodies emerging from the mycelial network could have appeared,” commented the naturalist.
When asked if it was safe to use such mushrooms, A. Kulbis reassured me that it was safe, even though there were frosts, they were not critical, and besides, squirrel mushrooms are not extremely cold-loving mushrooms.
