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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
The Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is a tree squirrel that is native to the eastern to midwestern United States and the eastern provinces of Canada. The species name carolinensis refers to the Carolinas, where they were first recorded by zoologists, and are still extremely common.
The Eastern Gray has also been introduced into a variety of locations on the west coast of North America, including San Francisco and the Peninsula area of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties south of the city. At the turn of the 20th century it was introduced into South Africa and England, spreading across the latter and then invading both Wales and parts of southern Scotland where it has almost exclusively displaced the population of the native Red Squirrel. It has also been introduced to Italy, and the European Union is concerned that the gray squirrel will displace the Red Squirrel from parts of the European continent, as well.
The Eastern Gray Squirrel is common throughout most of its natural range and wherever it has been introduced. It readily becomes tolerant of humans and learns to take food left or offered by picnickers.
As its name suggests, the Eastern Gray Squirrel's fur is predominantly gray, but it can have a reddish tinge. Its belly is white. They have a large bushy tail. Particularly in urban situations where predation risk is reduced, both albino and melanistic forms of the Eastern Gray Squirrel are quite often found. At the northern limits of its range in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the melanistic form tends to be more common than the gray form. There are well established colonies of melanistic individuals in Victoria Park, London, Ontario, Canada (with a daughter colony at Kent State University, Ohio); Albion, Michigan; Farmington, Michigan; Holland, Michigan; Washington, DC; Toronto, Ontario and its surrounding areas; Princeton, New Jersey; and the Bronx, New York. Additionally there are colonies of albino (white) individuals in the towns of Exeter, Ontario and Olney, Illinois as well as Brevard, North Carolina.
Like many members of the family Sciuridae, the Eastern Gray Squirrel is a scatter-hoarder, that is, it hoards food in numerous small caches, for recovery later. Some of these caches (especially those made near the site of a sudden abundance of food) are retrieved within hours or days, for re-burial in a more secure site. Others are not retrieved until months later. It has been estimated that each squirrel makes several thousand caches each season. The squirrels have very accurate spatial memory for the locations of these caches, and use distant and nearby landmarks to retrieve them. Olfaction is used only once the squirrel is within close range (a few centimetres at most) of the cache site. |
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