How are they gonna blend in being black? The trees have Grey bark, seems like this would get selected out pretty quick. Unless there's no Hawks in the area
The first time i have ever seen a black squirrel was in a park in Vancouver BC. I live in Seattle which is 3 hours south, and we only have grey squirrels around here. However, i have read that near the border there are some black squirrels, which would make sense
Funny enough the reason Vancouver has black squirrels is due to an American city (can't remember if it was New York or Boston) that gifted them black squirrels.
I had never seen one before visiting the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx for the first time like 8-9years ago. I guess they have their own little population at the garden is what one of the guides said. Recently I've been seeing them all over CT even though I have lived here my whole life and never seen one here before like 2-3 years ago 🤷
What’s odd for me is the black squirrels literally exist on only a few streets in one side of town. It’s like they don’t branch out or travel far, I mean it makes sense I guess.
I came to ask, are they supposed to be a different color? I have only ever seen them be black or very dark. Lived in southern Ontario most of my life though.
The Black squirrels in Ontario and Western NY are just melanistic Eastern Grey Squirrels. First time I ever saw one was while visiting Niagara Falls on the American side. I occasionally see them further into NY, but they're mostly a regional thing. I think the melanistic genetics are just very dominant.
i was gonna ask bc like… i feel like literally every other squirrel here is pure black fur and i live in southern ontario. its crazy to me that this is not normal elsewhere? it’s so prevalent that they’re what i think of when someone says to think of a squirrel.
its a near-canada experience to see black squirrels. took a tour around niagara and the guide said the black squirrels are native canadians but can be found a few miles away from the border. saw them 90 miles away from the border in my uni town. i miss the black squirrels
The squirrels in my backyard have had three litters this summer. From that I have pure black, red and black all black with a red tail and one that's kind of a brindle color.
They’re adorable, and the town loves them. They’re the official town mascot so everywhere you look you see cartoon white squirrels, stuffed animals, paintings, and then the real thing when you’re lucky!
Yeah! I stay in Asheville but my rents have a place in Brevard. It’s a sweet little town, and we love those squirrels. We even see them way up on the mountain sometimes. Between them and the blue ghosts there’s some super cool fauna in these parts.
Black squirrels are a mutation from the gray colour, typically found in more nothern areas. They think the black fur helps them absorb more heat when it's cold.
We always called them fox squirrels. They were a rarity but had some that liked to run in front of the car halfway up the driveway like they were daring us to run 'em over but they were faster than we were ever driving. Did that for a year or two at least.
Yeah, black squirrels are very common in Southern Ontario. I guess I just assumed if you have squirrels you have all the normal colours - black, grey, red, brown
We don't get them at all in my neck of the woods. This discussion reminds me of one I read years ago where someone was from a country that doesn't have squirrels (Australia maybe?) and had come to the US and couldn't believe how they were everywhere and we mostly don't even react to them.
The black squirrels in Canada are weird. Most of Canada has melanistic squirrels because of the absorbed heat better apparently having a black coat. I think the species is still the same. In western Canada on Vancouver Island for example the black ones are an introduced invasive species that are destructive apparently. Pretty interesting.
I have noticed this in Minnesota. I never saw any as a child, I saw a few around college age, and now I see them everywhere, especially in the north woods
There’s black squirrels all over the Mall at our nations capitol. Pretty sure I remember my teacher telling me they were a weird crossbreed or variant?
Southern Ontario has the vast majority of the black squirrel population. While this is not an uncommon site for us, our out of province/out of country visitors get quite a kick.
That's the thing though, it's not. Well, maybe "mildly" uncommon. The thing I find so fascinating is that they seem to be common in the areas they exist, but extremely rare otherwise. I had literally never seen them before and I grew up in the same area. I didn't even know they existed. I think that's true for a lot of people, but now I see them every day.
Black squirrel population densities are very high in michigan/Ontario. But also notably high in city regions. I went to a seminar on the topic, was fascinating. Apparently they were at one point the major pigment of squirrel, hypothesized to be due to large amount of hemlock/cedar pre-colonialization
I am really loving the replies to this thread (especially the ones implying I'm dumb because "all" squirrels look like this). Squirrels are so common in North America that I never really thought about the genetic diversity of them. Like, sure, there are other species, but I had literally only seen gray squirrels until a few years ago. It's so interesting to hear what is normal in other areas.
Also, to repeat what I've said elsewhere, the weirdest thing is they are ONLY in my town - if you go a mile in any direction you don't see them (or they're much less common).
Yeah they were hypothesizing that Black squirrels stand out more on normal city pavement as compared to gray squirrels and are thus less likely to be hit by vehicles. They didn't have much evidence yet other than statistically, michigan and Ontario aside, Black squirrel population are densest in urban settings
Indeed. I live in Canada and 90% of squirrels are black here. Honestly, the ones that aren't black are the ones we take note of as being mildly different.
in north america, the black squirrels you encounter are melanistic grey squirrels. same species, but with a mutation that darkens their coloration.
some areas have a lot of melanistic grey squirrels. my hometown had more black squirrels than grey ones. where i live now, i only see a black squirrel once every few months
I can't find the article now so I'm just going off memory. I remember an article that investigated relative distribution of black and grey morphs of eastern grey squirrels that at first appeared to follow socioeconomic distributions in cities. When further investigated I think they found that the real effect was black morphs were more tolerant of some predators, so they were more common in areas with higher populations of large dogs. I might have that wrong, it was a long time ago.
My hometown has exclusively gray squirrels. Then I moved to Quebec City and most of them are black; I had never seen a black one before. Same for the Ottawa/Gatineau region, they're mostly black with the occasional gray one.
I went to college in Westfield Massachusetts and saw a lot of them there. Someone spread a rumor that they only exist there, which I believed at the time since I'd never seen a black squirrel before, but I've since seen them elsewhere.
When I was a kid living in the Kingston area all the squirrels were black. I remember going to visit relatives in Atlanta and they had grey ones. That was forty years ago and the last time I was home they were all grey.
My college in North Philly has an old farmstead on the campus that has black squirrels on it. Not sure if they are native or introduced like the Ohio Squirrels. N
I remember living just north of Philly and being charmed by the huge number of black squirrels. Meanwhile, today in Hershey, I barely missed running over a white (not albino) squirrel.
I'm in Pennsylvania and the small town I live in has black squirrels - a mutation of the normal gray squirrels we also have. The wild thing is they are only present in about a mile radius. Outside of town, down the road, on the other side of the highway they are not present.
I'd love to know more about the genetics that would make that possible, but they are just present in this town, and they are plentiful. Maybe a 50/50 split.
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u/Once_Upon_Time 5h ago
Really interesting how certain parts of the US don't have black squirrels...black is the default colour when I think of squirrels or grey.