Comments on: White & Black Squirrels…and Ligers too

By: chunkyg

chunkyg — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:44:23 +0000

Odd, but I saw a melanistic squirrel in Portage, WI, just a couple of days before accidentally stumbling across references to such things here at Cryptomundo, a site I visit with some regularity. The squirrel was on the north side of W Cook Street (Hwy 33), two houses east of W Wisconsin Street (Hwy 16). I didn’t even know they existed until that moment.

By: longrifle48

longrifle48 — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:13:22 +0000

Plenty black squirrels in Michigan. My sister in law has a white one in her oak tree in the backyard in Ohio. Pretty cool to see.

By: jinxstarr

jinxstarr — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 19:07:27 +0000

There’s a large population of albino or white squirrels in the Ozarks. I believe the town is Marionville, MO.

I remember years ago some people thought they should all be killed but others banned together and saved the now protected white squirrels.

I saw them years ago and I don’t think they’re actually albino, seems like they had normal brown eye coloring. But I’m no expert.

By: rustycrayfishman_wi

rustycrayfishman_wi — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 20:00:16 +0000

If anyone is looking for black squirrels, go to LaCrosse, WI; half the cities squirrel population are melanistic squirrels.

By: EastexQueenB

EastexQueenB — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 02:05:20 +0000

I own three cats that have the “chinchilla” gene, which is actually a form of the “silver” gene. It’s a variation of the agouti (wild coloring) gene in which the color is suppressed along the hair shaft in various lengths, depending on the amount of expression that comes through. The end result is usually a white undercoat, with the guard hairs having a black tip of various lengths. “Chinchilla” has black on only the very tips of the hair, and “smoke” is where most of the hair is black, except for near the skin and the undercoat, and only shows when the hair is parted.

Just FYI.

EQB

By: Bluestroke

Bluestroke — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 05:57:20 +0000

There is healthy population of black squirrels residing on the U Mass Amherst campus and can be observed often near the chancellor’s home up the winding pathway near on the hill near the Orchard Hill Dorms. First noticed them in 1987 and for the next four years. I was amazed having only seen the greys. Returned to the campus there twice last year and spotted them on both occasions. For what it is worth!

By: sschaper

sschaper — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 04:35:24 +0000

There was a white, likely albino, squirrel on the campus of Concordia Saint Paul a year ago. But black squirrels make me think of the Mirkwood. . .

By: kittenz

kittenz — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 22:18:24 +0000

Melanistic Gray squirrels are actually quite common in the northern parts of their range. They are not considered to be mutants, but are a recognized color phase, much as black leopards are a recognized color phase of Panthera pardus. White squirrels are much less common. The white squirrel in your photo here is an albino, but I have seen other white squirrels which are not. Two white Gray squirrels that I have seen appear to have a color pattern similar to the “chinchilla” color pattern in domestic cats (which also occurs in some other species of small cats, notably servals). It is a pattern in which an animal that is born dark retains its dark skin, but the fur pales and eventually becomes silvery white. The chinchilla pattern is especially striking in Persian cats, which are, at maturity, icy white with green eyes and black skin. Given enough time, perhaps, chinchilla-patterned Gray squirrels could become common. They would not suffer the same health problems as albinos.