As a student at Kent State, there were black squirrels everywhere on campus. They outnumbered the more “traditional” red ones, and interbreeding resulted in these pretty silvery-gray colored mulatto squirrels. There’s even a Black Squirrel Festival and a decent-sized student faction that wants to change the mascot to a black squirrel. According to legend, someone introduced the black squirrel to Kent when he transported six specimens from their native Canada, and they just took over the campus, but never really spread out that much further. As a reference point, I grew up in North Eastern Ohio, just forty minutes away, and I never saw a black squirrel anywhere near my hometown–just Kent and its proximity.
I just started graduate school in Eastern Michigan (about three hours from Kent, aka the Black Squirrel epicenter of the US). The past few weeks I have observed a fair number of red squirrels hopping around doing whatever it is they do with nuts and whatnot…when I spotted a black one. Since then, I’ve been on the lookout for others (or, I guess, another sighting of the same one, since it’s not like I was able to tag the little guy to track his migration). I’ve also been keeping an eye out for the gray half-and-halfers, but no dice. So either they’re an extreme minority here, or else one crawled up into the undercarriage of my Volvo and moved in with me…
At any rate, I was wondering if anyone knows how far the black squirrel has spread through the Midwest since the introduction at Kent (or if another batch was dropped off somewhere else). Or, alternately, what’s the racial diversity of the squirrel population at **your **university?
I went to school at KSU and live in Macedonia (northern Summit county, about 30 mins northwest) and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one up here. When I drive to Kent, I start seeing them in Stow (south of here, west of Kent). I try not to travel around Portage county too much, so I’m not sure how far south or east they go.
Trying to remember if I saw them much in Streetsboro (northern Portage county) when my friends lived there…I am thinking not much.
Two girls that I’ve known since their childhood (my daughter’s friends) moved to the midwest for college. One is at Augustana in Rock Island, IL and the other is at Creighton in Omaha, NE. They have been talking back and forth on Facebook about the crazy black squirrels. I’m not sure what is crazy about them, but they have made a big impression on these girls.
They live in pockets in the Detroit area. There will be areas where they live then areas for red ones. They do not seem to mix. Plessy v Fergasquirrel is still in effect here. They live separate but equal lives.
I live in North Jersey and I’ve never seen one. A 15 minute ride to Manhattan and I can see plenty of them in Washington Square Park. I used to joke that I would kidnap some and see if I can get a population going in NJ.
There a black squirrels all over Calgary (Canada). When my wife first moved there from Indiana, she had a WTF? moment when she first saw them - now that we’re in Indiana, I’ve not seen a black squirrel anywhere.
Black squirrels are simply Eastern Gray Squirrels that carry a gene mutation that makes them melanistic. When I was a kid, they were rare. Now they seem to outnumber their gray brothers and sisters, which could have numerous causes. Or they could just seem more numerous they are more striking and memorable than the gray ones.
Gray squirrels and red squirrels (actually, in the US, fox squirrels - red squirrels are a Eurasian species) are two separate species and do not interbreed. Fox squirrels are larger than gray squirrels, and like actual foxes, vary greatly in color - including red with gray mixed in. So you aren’t seeing “mulatto” hybrid squirrels - simply ordinary fox squirrels. (Fox squirrels can be melanistic as well, but black squirrels are more likely to be gray.)
So, it’s not that someone dropped black squirrels at Kent and they spread from there - they’re a naturally occurring variant of a very common, widespread species. The may occur in greater ratios in some locales, but considering that squirrels are found continuously across a wide area, the gene can and does travel and can appear anywhere without any human intervention at all.
My freshman year at Bowling Green, we had “the King of Squirrels,” a white (possibly albino) squirrel. I was so happy to spot it in a tree on my way to class one morning. As luck would have it, I saw it the next day too. Only this time it was a bloody smear on the road.
There are black squirrels in California. The first time I ever saw one was actually at Stanford. I’m not clear if these are the same subgroup as black squirrels as in the East and Mid-West, or a different melanistic divergence from a native grey squirrel population.
Excellent post, except for this point. The American Red Squirrel is in fact native to North America, and is a distinct species from the Fox Squirrel. In particular, the Red Squirrel is only about 2/3 as long as the Fox Squirrel or the Gray Squirrel.
They are all over southern Geauga County, (including my neighbors’ yards–I don’t have enough trees), about 12 - 15 miles north of Kent, OH and KSU.
As gonzomax noted, they are also around Detroit, mostly on Belle Isle in the Detroit River and the Detroit shore extending Northeast into the rich neighborhoods of all the cities with “Grosse Pointe” in their names. I never saw one on the West Side of Detroit or up in Oakland County.
Melanistic Eastern Gray Squirrels are quite common in New York City. I believe they have become more common since the 1950s, when I was growing up there.
I am not aware of any studies, but I believe that the melanistic form is more common in urban areas. This may be due to the relative lack of natural predators in cities, which would select against the more conspicuous black morph in rural areas. However, the fact that this morph is so widespread in many different urban areas suggests implies that there could be some positive selective factor involved in the absence of natural predation.
Some urban populations have albino squirrels as well; there is a part of Schenectady, New York, where gray squirrels with white tails are common.
This is my experience as well. I live in Twinsburg (town next to Macedonia, maybe a smidgen closer to Kent) and grew up in Kent. No black squirrels here that I’ve noticed.
Would be interesting to see some sort of map showing black squirrel sightings in the area, and trend the spread… Maybe somebody could get a Master’s thesis out of it.
I’ve never seen one here in NE Ohio, but I saw one in NYC. I lived on the top floor of an apartment building in the East Village, and one came down from the roof and played on the fire escape, driving my cats crazy.
All the squirrels in my area are silver. Occasionally I see a red one here and there, but the red ones are by far the minority. My parents, when they moved to IL said they were a bit surprised at all the red ones and no grey ones. They had never really thought about different colored squirrels… they just kind of took for granted that they were all greyish.
I live in Northern IL and have just started seeing black squirrels here. Never saw one before in my life until two years ago. They’re quite pretty. I like them better than the ugly grey squirrel.
A little down the Peninsula in Cupertino, I seem to be seeing them in cycles. For a while there was a lot of black squirrels, then practically none. There seems to be some black ones again, now.
I’ve heard that myths floated around the Stanford campus about the black ones being the result of mutations induced by the Stanford Linear Accelerator, deliberate experiments, or introduced from Europe by some alumni. Heh.
Maybe. I hike the local area a lot, and I don’t seem to see them out in the woods. I mentioned the black squirrels on another board a while back. Somebody brought up the point that the melanistic variant may be linked to a better immune system, which is apparently true in cats, and the resistance to disease would be more important with the factor of being more visible to predators taken away. He also brought up the point that people might think the black ones were cool, and fed them. I have my doubts about that explanation. Most people in the suburbs just want to keep squirrels of all colors out of their bird feeders.
