Electric Squirrels - I Don't Believe It

According to the article A Lost Wilderness (dated 25/08/2007, so no April Fool story!) in The Daily Telegraph magazine...

"Squirrels are highly intelligent, agile enough to tightrope-walk along telephone wires, and poor conductors of electricity. Somehow they have realised that by biting through to the bare wires and short-circuiting the 50 volts that run through them into their own bodies, they can heat themselves up. In this way... each squirrel becomes a sort of low-voltage electric blanket - and will sit up on the wires with a stoned smile for hours."

Don't they run the risk of progressively electrolysing themselves? We must help protect them from themselves! If you can spare one, please put a spliff out with the peanuts...

Whatever next? Birds nesting in front of military radars to gently warm the eggs in the periodic microwave beam so they can spend longer looking for food?

NB I do like the idea that squirrels are notable for being poor conductors of electricity... I wonder where that idea fits within the Ontology of Everything?

Other little known facts about the natural world...

• Frogs make poor impact armour
• Alligators are largely opaque
• Tuna are typically transparent to neutrinos