Black Squirrel Oddity

I found something completely exciting today! The pictures I have here are really not very clear, but they show something that I never thought I would see. What I have for you today is an oddity, something very unusual and unique! What I have is a black squirrel with a patch of white fur on his tail!

Now let me explain what is so compelling about this. most black squirrels that you would ever see are a solid black color. A black squirrel is actually a type of eastern gray squirrel with extra melanism in its fur. I don't know why they are still classified as grays because their fur stays black and they have black furred offspring. If you want to know more about black squirrels you can look at this post: Black Squirrel

There is a strange side effect to all of these squirrels being so dark though. Supposedly in rare cases some of these black squirrels will be born as albinos. They are completely white instead of the normal black color. It's not always a case of complete albinism though. There are variations that range from the animal being all white with the eyes being pink as well. That's a complete albino. Others are all white with normal dark eyes. And there are still others that only have small patches of white fur.

The last kind is what I have here today. This may be one of the oddest creatures I've seen so far. I guess if you watch long enough, you're bound to see some strange things. What's even more strange is that I had just been looking at pictures of white squirrels. I stumbled across them after doing a little bit of reading about black squirrels, so I decided to search out the white ones.

I found this particular squirrel while I was just getting back to the front of the nature park, after a nice relaxing hike yesterday. I watched it for a long time at a distance. I knew I'd never be able to get any decent pictures of it, but I tried anyway because you just never know when you might get lucky.

After about a minute it turned a certain way and I saw that white patch of fur at the end of its tail. I began furiously taking as many pictures as I could get, hoping for some small evidence that I was really seeing this. These pictures are the best of what I ended up with, and they clearly show that white patch of fur. These three are more than I expected I would get.

This gives me hope that one day I'll get to see a complete albino squirrel. And this might even be a small omen that I'll again get to see that mysterious white creature that I followed a few weeks ago. I had the distinct impression that one was maybe a fox or some other sort of canine. It might have been foolish to follow it, but that color drew me like a magnet.

I still hope that one of these days I'll get to find out what that creature was. A man can dream...