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Mystery Solved: Scientists Have Figured Out Why Some Squirrels Are Black
mental floss.com ^ | August 15, 2019 | Jake Rossen

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 ...


TOPICS: Outdoors; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: dna; squirrels
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To: norwaypinesavage; Hot Tabasco

Or northern Mi. They are everywhere here.


61 posted on 08/17/2019 4:48:58 PM PDT by MarMema (breeding tauntauns in northern Michigan - soon to be for sale!)
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To: Texan5

We have predominately grey squirrels in Queens, but we have been seeing black squirrels for the past couple of years. The first black squirrels I ever saw were in Toronto, about 20 years ago.


62 posted on 08/17/2019 8:17:20 PM PDT by EinNYC
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To: Daffynition

We have white squirrels in my neighborhood..should I feel guilty? Our Black Lab recently chased a white squirrel...is that a hate crime?


63 posted on 08/17/2019 8:58:03 PM PDT by The Great RJ ("Socialists are happy until they run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcher)
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To: Daffynition

We have several black squirrels about here. First one I saw... i thought it was a cat... until it ran up a phone pole and down the wires.


64 posted on 08/18/2019 6:02:09 AM PDT by mmercier0921
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To: Daffynition

I wanted to do a video of my yorkie terrorists morphing into mini werewolves. I got the vision, just not the talent.


65 posted on 08/18/2019 6:12:04 AM PDT by mmercier0921
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To: Psalm 73

Squirrels are super territorial.


66 posted on 08/18/2019 6:14:44 AM PDT by mmercier0921
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To: faithhopecharity

Orange squirrel bad.


67 posted on 08/18/2019 6:21:32 AM PDT by Safetgiver (Islam makes barbarism look genteel.)
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To: Safetgiver

Yes. But orange squirrel with purple polka dots.....good


68 posted on 08/18/2019 6:41:49 AM PDT by faithhopecharity ( “Politicians are not born; they are excreted.” Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 to 43 BCE))
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To: Daffynition

That’s the famous pit pull black squirrel.


69 posted on 08/18/2019 7:40:15 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: EinNYC

The only black squirrels I’ve ever seen are the rock squirrels, and only out in the country-the few times I’ve lived in a city, I’ve only seen the gray ones-I live in a remote rural area and there are both gray and black squirrels-the black ones only live on the cliffs over the river-they don’t get grabbed by the hawks as much as the gray squirrels do-probably because they live under the cliffs and tree canopy and are harder for birds of prey to spot and dive down on-hawks like to hunt prey on open ground...


70 posted on 08/18/2019 12:53:56 PM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys-you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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