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Sploot? Splooting? Splooted? You may have come across the word in one or more of its forms while goggling at a picture of a very flat looking dog or squirrel. Although it’s quite probably self-explanatory, we thought a short diversionary interlude to look into the word, the action and its mammalian manifestation might allow for a little procrastinatory pleasure. So, put off the more important things you  must do today and delve with us into this fascinating phenomenon. Perhaps you could even attempt a languid sploot yourself as you read on…

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Or perhaps not (disclaimer #1). First, the action.  Merriam-Webster added "sploot" to its dictionary in 2022, defining it as a slang term for the pose in which an animal lies flat on its belly with its hind legs stretched out behind it.  That much is obvious, but why do animals sploot?  The rather silly looking pose is in fact a very sensible solution to the issue of overheating.

While we might go and shower, your average squirrel doesn’t have ready access to modern household amenities. So, when splooting season (which we more regularly refer to as high summer) begins, there has to be a way to cool oneself down.  The solution is to find some shade untouched throughout the day by the sun.

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Then, place the least hairy part of your body (your belly) on top of the area and… rest.  Sprawl, splay… sploot. Lie flat and stay still.  Allow the heat to dissipate by using the shaded surface to soothe and refresh, helping your body cool down naturally. Scientifically, this is called conductive heat transfer - the transmission of heat through direct contact, from the warmer object (the body) to the cooler object (the ground). When you lie on a cooler surface, heat flows from warmer skin to the colder ground, helping to lower overall body temperature. Relief follows. Conductive heat transfer (or just conduction) works both ways – put your hand around a cup full of hot coffee if you want to experiment with that (disclaimer #2 goes right here).

Some people who witness splooting for the first time believe the animal to be in some kind of distress.  However, it is in fact distress relief.

Here’s a cute thought – squirrel big brains in white coats discovering the science of the sploot in their arboreal laboratory (well, it wouldn’t be the dogs, would it?).  As a further digression, would a laboratory in the trees be an arboratory?  Then, disseminating the new discovery to their bushy-tailed buddies, the sciurine world would smugly revel in ita problem-solving prowess. Just another reason why squirrels generally look so self-satisfied, perhaps.

Coming back down to earth, as it were, the discovery will have been made by chance a million million generations ago – and probably by some now extinct species. Splooting has most likely been around for quite a while longer than squirrels.

That brings us onto the word – and its first appearances in literature.  As a slang word, it won’t come as a surprise to learn that it’s been around for decades in comics, making appearances as far back as the 1950s, bubbling a little under the lexicographer’s radar but there nonetheless. It was used in an onomatopoeic manner to show not so much a splat but something a little less forceful – a more gentle or even half-hearted splattering sound, perhaps pronounced with a gently musical intonation.

It certainly combines both splay and splat – which sound like something done quickly and with some force – with the slower process of adjusting the hind legs outwards to softly lower the belly onto the ground.  There’s a soupcon of “sprawl” and "splits" in there somewhere, too.

The word’s twenty-first-century renaissance is due to it specific application to animal behavior during heatwaves.  Fingers of blame (or credit, depending on your perspective) point occasionally to Australia where the English language regularly submits to a good old-fashioned mangling, often in humorously creative ways. It seems to have taken off around 2011 and took just over a decade to make it into the Merriam-Webster dictionary.  Yet, locating its modern point of origin is probably an exercise in futility given the global reach of the English language and its online presence.  And, essentially, resistance is futile when it comes to the hive mind that is the internet.  The word is here, it’s been assimilated, added to the collective and it’s splooting well staying.

It’s everywhere.  At the forefront of all things splooty is the subreddit r/sploot – some examples below.

Only 7 months old yet she is well-versed in the ways of the sploot
byu/eudora999 insploot

Penguin chicks, because of their fat insulation, when they get too hot, they pant and stick their legs out, which cools them off
byu/Ravenclaw_14 inAwwducational

Very best Sploot 😂
byu/brolbo insploot

As you can see, it should also be mentioned that other animals sploot! We have only mentioned squirrels and dogs.  Yet the art of splooting is not restricted to only them and these animals deserve an honorable mention for their forays into the world of the sploot…

 

Marmosets sploot.

Bears and chpimuks sploot.

Panda's don't sploot.  They really just splat, pure and simple.

 Splooting isn't just for mammals and the occasional bird. Even komodo dragons sploot

Yet if there was to be a Sploot Olympics, the winners would no doubt be Team Squirrel (which, of course, would make them even smugger than usual).  Their natural flexibility means that not only can they sploot with gymnastic, elastic ease, they can sploot pretty much anywhere they choose.  “And the gold medal goes to Chippy McPeanut, who has once again dazzled the world with their incredible splooting skills.”

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