Another Squirrel Question

[roundball]

Has anyone seen or does anyone know anything about a squirrel that has a black & white stripe on its head...or maybe a particular color phase some type of squirrel might go through?

 

[roundball]

I found what I was thinkng of...its official name is "Southern Fox Squirrel".

Only saw one in my life, back in the '60s when I was hunting around Shaw air force base in South Carolina and never forgot it...all this talk about squirrels dragged it back to the forefront.
It was very, very large as squirrels go and the head was black and white, like in the photo below...never forgot the sighting itsef but about 45 years time blurred the recollection from a black & white head to a head with black & white stripe...sorry about that...the Internet is fantastic...here it is:
http://images.google.com/imgres?im...q=%22southern+fox+squirrel%22&um=1&hl=en&sa=N

 

[rabjr]

Wow lol Never seen a squirrel like that before. Seen black ones in New York but nothing like this one.

 

[Pork Chop]

Some of those fox squirrels get plain HUGE!! There is a garden - Brookgreen Gardens near Myrtle Beach - that has some that look like terriers running around...

 

[roundball]

When I saw the one I've remembered all my life, I was 19 or 20 in the USAF, green kid, sitting in the woods with a .22, and this thing comes lunging along through the trees...it was huge...and with the flashes of black & white on its head, in my youthful ignorance I was wondering if I was seeing some sort of mutant skunk or something, then it was gone...have never seen another one since...boy, that was a long time ago...hunting the woods around "Sparkleberry Lake", in SC.

 

[Pork Chop]

Sure doesn't take many of those to make a mess of squirrels, does it? :thumbsup:

 

[slowpokebr549]

More things under the sun......guess there are more types than just red and grey. I gotta get out of Deerfield more often.

 

[jethro224]

Sure is a purty critter.

We have pure black fox squirrels in my neighborhood. We also have a few blond ones And a farm I used to hunt in the next county had quite a few fox squirrels that were mostly regular color with large random patches of black, kinda like an Indian paint pony.

There's another town here in IL with a population of white squirrels that they're real proud of. I forget the name of the town at the moment.

Pretty neat, the variations.

 

[paulvallandigham]

OLney is the Illinois town famous for its albino squirrels, but Fisher, Illinois, much closer to you, also has a few. Ironically, the White squirrels are protected, but the Black versions are not. Both are equally likely to occur, if you remember your basic genetics.

We had an all-black Whitetail Doe living North of Villa Grove, Illinois that I saw once. She was seen by other hunters, too, on other occasions.

 

[Darkhorse]

There can be a lot of color variation in the southern fox squirrel. One lives on my property that has a black head and back. He/she has white stripes on the head, with a white and brown belly.
Must be more than one cause something has built a huge nest in one of my pecan trees that looks a lot like a squirrel nest.
They like mature pine forests and get up later in the morning than a gray. Their habits of being out and about in the middle of the day and mostly in Pines and Pecan orchards cause a lot of hunters to never see one. That along with the fact that their is not many of them left.

 

[MikeC]

Saw a black phase Gray Squirrel once in the NY Catskills. Not sure if we have Fox Squirrels in NJ, if we do I never saw one. They look huge compared to our Gray Squirrel. One in the pic is cool.

Squirrel season opens Saturday hope the weather man is wrong.

 

[roundball]

"...He/she has white stripes on the head..."

Ah HAAAAAAAA ! My memory wasn't slipping after all...I am certain the one I saw way back had a B&W striped head and as I said, my immediate impulse was that it was some sort of mutant skunk coming towards me until I watched it moving through the branches like a squirrel moves
:thumbsup:

 

[KyFlintlock]

I know a guy that was watching one play around his stand a few years ago and a bobcat snatched him. He shot the cat and got them both mounted.

Now that is cool
Wess

 

[roundball]

I know a guy that was watching one play around his stand a few years ago and a bobcat snatched him. He shot the cat and got them both mounted.

Now that is cool
Wess

Sure sounds like it...do you know how he had them mounted...cat after the squirrel...squirrel in the cat's mouth, etc ?

 

[Black Hand]

....the White squirrels are protected, but the Black versions are not. Both are equally likely to occur, if you remember your basic genetics....

Not necessarily. Depends on whether the trait is homozygous, heterozygous, sex-linked, dominant, recessive, etc.....

 

[paulvallandigham]

I was told that the color phase is a recessive gene, in my high school, and college biology classes. Thats been a few years ago, so someone may have found out different, but I haven't heard the news. I will stick with my statement. The white and black phases are equally likely to occur. The Black squirrels, and deer are just harder to see, so you don't get pictures for the local newspaper to print with black critters. That black doe was alive for at least 2 years before I stopped hearing anything about her.

 

[KyFlintlock]

I'll hit him up for a pic.

Wess

 

[JackAubrey]

They have some very similar to that photo here in central Florida.The one in the photo is somewhat darker than the ones I see.The sides of the body have a more buff or "creme" colour rather than solid grey although they remain dark along the topside. They are quite large though!Best regards,J.A.

 

[KyFlintlock]

Here is the pic of the guy I know that was watching this squirrel and saw the cat nail him, then he shot the cat.

COOL STUFF!!!!!
Wess

 

[roundball]

That's a great mount configuration...thanks for going to the trouble of sharing that...
:hatsoff: