Posted on 08/17/2019 10:39:20 AM PDT by Daffynition
snip...
Like many animals with unusual color schemes, black squirrels are the result of a genetic detour. Researchers at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge University, and the Virginia Museum of Natural History collaborated on a project that tested squirrel DNA. Their findings, which were published in BMC Evolutionary Biology, demonstrated that the black squirrel is the product of interspecies breeding between the common gray squirrel and the fox squirrel. The black squirrel is actually a gray squirrel with a faulty pigment gene carried over from the fox squirrel that turns their fur a darker shade. (Some fox squirrels, which are usually reddish-brown, are also black.)
(Excerpt) Read more at mentalfloss.com ...
Michigan has lots. Especially on east side of Detroit. No joke.
We have black squirrels in Elkhart County Ind. The story is someone brought a few over from their European homeland for a glimpse of home ... they escaped ... and mixed in with the gray squirrels. They seem to peacefully co-exist here. Somehow one ended up at my parents’ place in southern Indiana. He/she kept getting beat up by the fox squirrels and would wait until it was all clear to go to the feeder.
I’m waiting for the Orange squirrel with purple polka dots.
There was a black squirrel living near my old house. Saw it a few times.
Council Bluffs Iowa was called the black squirrel capitol at one time. There and here across the river in the Omaha Nebraska area they are pretty common. We have a lot of them in our back yard in Bellevue NE.
Funny - there’s a back road that winds between Naugatuck and Waterbury and it’s just loaded with black squirrels. It’s the oddest thing.
Since we moved into the area 12 years ago outside Cleveland ALL the squirrels in our backyard have gone from gray too Black.
Haven’t noticed any fox squirrels - but a lot of woods in the back yard so anything is possible.
Okay. Now I can go on with my life.
+++++
Me too - my life’s work now has to be viewed as a total failure. Sadly I’ve decided to give up my search for an explanation of the black squirrel’s origins. Who wants to finish second?
We have black squirrels north of Chicago. But in a town in Southern Illinois they have a group of reoccurring white squirrels. There are also white squirrels up near Green Bay. The white squirrels are common enough that they are far more popular than albino squirrels.
Stuyvesant Sq. Park. I grew up down the block on 17th. Only squirrels I ever knew were black. Any open space in that part of Manhattan like Stuyvesant Town, Tompkins Sq Park were home to black squirrels. We sometimes called them Skrats.
I had a couple of Black squirrels (4 legged) hang in my yard in Annandale VA and I don’t recall the greys etal having anything to do with them.
Maybe the greys were racist...
I just figured the Black Squirrels knew who I was working Asphalt for and figured I wouldn’t mind them hanging out...<: <: <:
Black squirrels are the result of a genetic detour.
Bet by Monday some idiot will tie that into some sort of race issue.
“BSLM”
You took the bait.
Mr. Peanut was playing in the woodpile?
I’ve seen them occasionally in my town in northwest Indiana.
Antifa squirrels from Portland.
That's enough to trigger folks and send them into dangerous palpitations. It's the fault of the NRA.
Orange squirrels bad!
Why do squirrels that comprise 4% of the population commit 47% of squirrel violence?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.