What to Know
- We've had pizza-stealing rats and raccoons, bagel-wearing pigeons and pita-loving rodents but this is the first known taco squirrel
- It wasn't exactly clear where in Brooklyn the photo was captured, but it went viral since it was posted to Twitter
- Have a photo or video of an animal doing something bizarre in the tri-state area? Email it to megan.merrigan@nbcuni.com
From Pizza Rat to Bagel Pigeon to the so-called Roll Mole, New Yorkers have long been infatuated by bizarre social media posts of animals indulging in human food, sometimes in the oddest of places.
And now, allow us to present the latest in viral meme enjoyment: Taco Squirrel.
Twitter user Maria Bianchi posted the photo of the squirrel, perched in a tree branch in Brooklyn, greedily nipping a yellow corn taco shell shortly before lunch time on Wednesday.
The photo, aptly captioned "Move over, Pizza rat," has since gone viral, with 1,250 retweets and more than 2,850 likes in just less than 48 hours.
A flurry of people commented on her post, including one person who suggested that if someone turned Pizza Rat and Taco Squirrel into a children's book, it may very well become the most important of its kind -- ever.
While photos and video of New York City animals doing or eating crazy things (like the rat that tried to go the wrong way down an escalator at Penn Station during rush hour -- or the pigeon that was seen outside a city park wearing a bagel as a necklace -- or the raccoon that loved Sicilian), no animal has arguably captivated the city quite as much as the beloved Pizza Rat, a rodent that became famous in 2015 after it was captured on video lugging an entire slice of pizza down the subway stairs. That video garnered nearly 10 million views on YouTube.
[[223762671, C]]
