Squirrels

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SQUIRRELS | A thread It turns out that you could drop a squirrel out of a plane and it wouldn't die. Let me explain...

Before we can understand why squirrels can survive high falls, we need to understand the way things fall. When anything moves through air, it experiences air resistance (or drag). This is caused by the friction between the air molecules and the object.

Friction, by definition, opposes motion so whichever direction an object may be going in, friction will slow it down.

Thus, the greater the height from which an object falls, the longer it falls for and therefore the less down wards acceleration it experiences (because the friction will oppose that downwards motion over more time).

Bear with me here. Gravity pulls anything with mass towards the center of the earth at an acceleration that's about 9.8m/s².

If something falls from high enough, there is a point where the it experiences so much friction that the total downward acceleration = 0m/s² (the friction cancels out acceleration due to gravity). This is terminal velocity: when an object has reached it's highest falling speed.

As a result of having fur and a relatively low mass, squirrels have a low terminal velocity (because the fur creates more friction). This means that a squirrel's top speed while falling is slow enough for it to survive the fall.

You could drop a squirrel off your roof, the Eiffel Tower, or out of a plane and the impact would not be enough for it to die. Crazy right?