Woman Snaps Photo Of Little Animal And Creates A Surprising Optical Illusion

Amber Dubois was on her lunch break in a Boston, Massachusetts, common area when she spotted one of her favorite animals — a squirrel. She grabbed her phone, excited for the chance to capture the adorable slew of furry squirrels scurrying around.

Dubois thought she’d taken the perfect picture, but as she went to show the photo to a friend, she realized the image didn’t turn out as expected.

“I didn’t realize when I took the picture that it looked like a very long squirrel,” Dubois told The Dodo. “One of my coworkers pointed it out to me when I showed it to her, and we both had a good laugh.”

The optical illusion shows what appears to be a squirrel’s head on one side of the tree, and another’s lower half on the opposite side. It wasn’t an elongated animal, but actually two squirrels on either side of the tree, creating the perfect optical illusion.

As an avid animal lover from Belgium who now lives in Dubai, squirrels are a special sight for Dubois to see in America. She adores anything small and fluffy, but there’s something unique about squirrels that makes her want to take a lot of photos.

“I take pictures of squirrels whenever I see them because I think they’re so cute,” Dubois said. “I think that the people who live here don’t pay much attention to them because they probably see them every day, but we don’t have them where I live. So to me, they’re kind of special.”

Dubois has taken hundreds of wildlife pictures over the last few years, but none quite like this.

“I’ll take pictures of any animal that comes up or is presented to me, [such as] squirrels (of course), koalas, snakes, tarantulas — and the list goes on,” Dubois said. “I have hundreds of crappy wildlife pictures in my camera. This is the first one I thought was really worth sharing.”

Capturing a squirrel with an extra-long body in a picture sounds like the perfect midday treat for all animal lovers.