The ears have it!

Here in the UK, we have our indigenous red squirrel with its long fluffy red ears, but we have all heard the tales of how the “introduced” grey squirrel (native to USA) has taken over most of their habitat. Perhaps because of global variations in “real” squirrels, when Swarovski introduced their mini squirrel in 1985, it produced 2 different squirrels according to continent, with the only difference being the size of the ears. The squirrel with larger ears was initially only available in the European market to represent the red squirrel, but from 1994 onwards it became available globally. Prior to that, a version with smaller ears to represent the grey squirrel was produced for the USA market only. The squirrel with smaller ears was discontinued in 1994 when the one with larger ears went “global”. So, at least the red squirrel won that battle and achieved world domination as far as crystal squirrels go, before the design was retired in 2012. Both are exceptionally cute!