Published: 17 November, 2008

Squirrels protected from electrocution on telephone wires

Why can squirrels touch the telephone wires and not get electricuted?

Have you ever "tasted" a 9V battery? When you touch the two terminals of a 9V battery to your tongue, you get an interesting tingling sensation. (Please do not try this at home.) This tingling taste is a result of the electrical current flowing through your tongue, which stimulates the nerves in your tongue. However, if you touch just one of the two terminals of a 9V battery to your tongue, you won't taste anything at all! Unless someone has been dipping your batteries in Tabasco sauce...

Electrical current wants to flow from a high voltage to a lower one. When you touch just one terminal of the 9V battery to your tongue, the current can't get to the other terminal, so no current flows and you can't taste anything. Only when you touch both terminals at the same time can current flow through your tongue from the high voltage terminal to the low one.

A squirrel on an electrical wire is only touching one wire, so there's nowhere for the current to go, and he is safe. It's just like when you touch your tongue to one terminal of the 9V battery. If he were big enough to touch two of the wires at the same time, he might be in trouble.