In 2019, a series of images went viral that depicted a squirrel stopping to smell a flower before eating it.
Squirrel stopping to smell a flower (photo by Dick van Duijn)
byu/BrokeTheInterweb inlikeus
Some Reddit users expressed doubts that the images were authentic. "The animal is dead and glued to the flower. Come on, people. How do you think this photo was made?" one user wrote.
We looked into the claim and found that the images were real – meaning that they were not photoshopped or otherwise digitally altered. The series of images show multiple angles and moments before and after the squirrel appeared to smell the flower, proving that the squirrel was indeed alive and not glued to the flower.
Dick Van Duijn, a wildlife photographer based in the Netherlands, took the images. The series is featured on his photography website [archived here] as well as his Instagram. Snopes reached out to him and will update this story if we hear back.
In an interview with Business Insider, Van Duijn shared that he traveled to Vienna, Austria, to specifically capture images of ground squirrels, a rodent of the squirrel family that burrows underground as opposed to living in trees like tree squirrels. It took him approximately two hours and 200 photos to capture the image in question.
"The moment the squirrel smelled the flower and planted his face in the flower, I knew this was the picture of a lifetime," Van Duijn said.