I thought Black Squirrels were supposed to be endangered?

[Taverner]

OK...So as the story goes, Black Squirrels were native to the US until Europeans arrived and brought Grey Squirrels with them. The Grey ones were much more efficient and obliterated the foood sources, causing Black Squirrels to go into decline. Grey ones are huge compared to Black ones, so it's understandable.

Anwyay, just go through Palo Alto ANY DAY and you will see herds of Black Squirrels everywhere. Sure you will see grey ones, and even a few red ones, but Black ones seem to be the dominant ones...

[CatBoreal]

1. Um, it's the other way around...

...at least that's what I remember from my Ecology 101.

Gray squirrels were indigenous to North American and the black squirrels were introduced by the Europeans.

[Taverner]

4. But outside of Palo Alto

I never EVER see Black ones....but grey ones, they're freakin EVERYWHERE!

[pdx_prog]

2. I have seen white ones too....

[Lautremont]

3. You've clearly never been to Toronto.

They run the place!

[CatBoreal]

5. Funny story:

At university, there was a patch of lawn in front of the student centre where we would hang out, have lunch, play hackey sack etc.. There were always 1 or 2 black squirrels about, begging for food.

One day, my friend Tzu falls asleep on the grass with a bag of chips on his chest. He wakes up to find not one, not two, but three squirrels pilfering his Doritos. He starts to get up when one of the squirrels turns around, puts it's paws on either side of his mouth and looks into his eyes as though to say: "Move an inch buddy, and your ass is mine!"

Tzu let them finish their snack and scamper on their merry way before trying to get up for class.

[Taverner]

6. OMG!!!!

:rofl:

Yes squirrels can be aggressive sometimes.

[CatBoreal]

7. I should add that Tzu is a...

3rd degree black belt (I think) in Tai Kwan Do

[Pithlet]

8. The only place I ever remember seening black squirrels

is in a city in Michigan, either Lansing or Ann Arbor; I don't remember which. It was on a field trip to one of those places when I was a kid.

[Dave Reynolds]

9. There are plenty in northern Michigan,

along with the gray and red varieties.

They all taste the same, though...

[gollygee]

10. We have tons of them

my husband is a big fan of squirrels and has researched this. He said that Eastern Gray squirrels can be either black, gray, or white. If the animal has a black gene and a white gene, the animal is gray, two white genes = white, two black genes = black. So black squirrels are Eastern Gray squirrels.

At least that's my understanding.

[NV Whino]

11. I haven't seen a black squirrel

since I left Colorado. In the Napa Valley, we have grey and red. The red ones seem to hang out in St. Helena.

[ForrestGump]

12. Fox squirrel?

I could look it up, but I'm wondering if the black squirrels are a color morph of the fox squirrel. I had a colleague who studied fox squirrels, primarily from a systematic point of view, and my memory of long talks with him about squirrels is that the fox squirrel (larger than the typical american gray squirrel) comes in a wide array of colors, including black.

I've only seen black squirrels in Quebec -- matter of fact, I don't know if I saw any gray ones there -- so maybe they're more common in the Great Lakes region and in isolated pockets elsewhere. Cute little things, I must say.

The American gray squirrel has pushed the red squirrel to the margins in the UK, so maybe that's helping to cause some of the confusion here.

[Xithras]

13. Never seen a black squirrel in the Ca Central Valley.

Only California Ground Squirrels and gray tree squirrels. I know that both black and fox squirrels are introduced species in this state, but I've never seen either one myself.