Random fact about squirrels, they don’t like having their pictures taken. One Maine teenager found this out the hard way when he tried to take a selfie with a squirrel he met while taking a hike.

Seventeen-year-old Brian Genest was visiting Florida to look at colleges when he decided to take a hike in John Chestnut Park near Tampa, Florida. During the hike he noticed a friendly squirrel seated on a handrail.

Genest approached the squirrel and took out his camera to snap a picture with it. The camera’s flash and noise scared the little squirrel and it attacked Genest. It jumped in his shirt and ran up and down his back before jumping to the ground a scurrying away.

“He was just in that spot where my arm can’t reach him,” Genest said. “I threw myself on the ground, and that scared him off.”

Genest’s mother was nearby to help shoo the squirrel away, but made sure she snapped a few photos of her own as the angry squirrel attacked her son.

Genest was able to get so close to the squirrel by making clicking noises with his mouth. The interested squirrel was willing to let him come a little closer but was not willing to cooperate for a photo shoot.

Genest’s mother said that she hoped the squirrel attack would be a lesson to Genest.

“I think he got a little lesson from the squirrel that he’s not really its buddy,” she said.

She also said that neither Genest nor the squirrel were harmed, but both were shaken up by the other’s actions.

What do you think of the squirrel attack and the photos?

Image via Wikimedia Commons