Newsgroups: sci.bio
Path: utzoo!rising
From: rising@utzoo.uucp (Jim Rising)
Subject: Black Squirrels
Message-ID: <1988Feb4.092448.7864@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Thu, 4-Feb-88 09:24:47 EST

In the east there are two kinds of squirels in the genus Sciurus, the
Gray Squirrel (S. carolinensis) and the Fox Squirrel (S. niger).  Both
are polymorphic in some populations, with a varying proportion of the
indiviuals being black.  As I understand it, the type specimen of the
Fox Squirrel was a black one--hence the Latin name.

In the Gray Squirrel, the frequency of the black squirrels increases
latitudinally, with the black ones predominating at this latitude
(Toronto).  Black Gray Squirrels from eastern Canada have been introduced
in various places, including Stanley Park in Vancouver, B.C.--but they 
are not native to the west.

At any given latitude, Fox Squirrels are larger than Gray Squirrels.  Thus,
black Gray Squirrels may have been introduced into those towns in Indiana
(and also Princeton, N.J.).  These would be smaller than the Fox Squirrels
that are more commonly associated with towns, at least in the mid-west
(i.e. Indiana).

Audubon, incidentally, has a handsome figure of Fox Squirrels, showing 
some of the variation in pellage color, in his (and Bachman's) Quadrupeds
of N.A.

--Jim Rising
-- 
Name:   Jim Rising
Mail:   Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto
        Toronto, Ontario, Canada    M5S 1A1
UUCP:   {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!rising