Caught this grey squirrel this morning and suspect it's a cross between a grey and a fox squirrel. Has anyone else seen something like this? The fur on it's ears and some orange spots on it's body tell me it's a cross. Second photo shows a comparison with a regular grey squirrel.

I would've said not possible as the are two completely different species but thought I should Google it first and found this.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...some-squirrels-black-coloring-180972921/

Interesting since I did manage to catch a black squirrel on the same farm last week.

Our yard is crawling with Black Squirrels. A couple years ago we also had two very light-colored ones that I was told were Blonde Squirrels.

Moosetrot

Black Squirrels Matter, haven't seen one in SEPA in a while

The roads around our place are a proving ground for the saying "Black Squirrel Lives Splatter".

Moosetrot

Got any better pictures?
Hard to tell.
I’ve never seen it myself, and I’ve killed and skinned many thousands of fox and grey squirrels in my life.
Not saying it isn’t possible.

Sorry bit those are the only pics I took of them.

I'm not sure if that is a cross or not, it does seem to have approximate shading of a fox squirrel ,especially that spot on it's chest.

I always thought it would be great if you could have a squirrel that was as big as a fox squirrel, but as tender as a grey,

As for the black squirrel, when I moved to the town where I used to live, there were a couple of black squirrels, a few fox, and a lot of normal color greys.

It was kind of talked about at the coffee shop and around town," oh did you see the cool black squirrel over by Joe's place ? " " yes, I think there are two now"
" So neat, never seen that before" etc etc.
Fats forward, a few years, maybe 10 to 12 , there were almost no fox squirrels left and very few normal color greys. fast forward another 10 or so years, and the population there is
about evenly matched, between all three . If anything I see more fox squirrel now than back then. I am seeing the same thing in another town nearby, that I am frequently in ,for work.

It was kind of a novelty back in the early 90s to see a black squirrel,then for a few years that was almost all you ever saw , in that town.
My dad , who would now rather feed the squirrels than hunt them, lives less than 50 miles away, and has never seen a grey around his town until very recently. They had an excellent population
of fox squirrels, as far back as I can remember.( I'm 54 )

I always thought that was just a gray squirrel with winter ear tufts- but I do have them at the feeder with and without.

My son shot a grey the other day that had the tuffs of hair on its ears and brown down the sides.

yes had them like that a my moms house , don't no about cross.

Gray squirrels molt quite early so one has lost it's winter ear muffs
you would see quite a bit of molting ( white opaque skin) on the back side of it's hide

Great article

The colorful squirrel looks no larger than, and perhaps smaller than, the gray. That makes me think it might just be an adolescent fox squirrel.

Caught another one this morning with the ear tufts but everything else looked like a regular grey squirrel. This one was at a different farm several miles away. Maybe they're not crossed with a fox squirrel.

If it’s a cross then it wasn’t consensual, lol. Down here greys and fox squirrels DO NOT get along. One fox squirrel will run half a dozen greys off food. And do it with enough ferocity that they won’t even attempt to come back until that Fox Squirrel has left.

We have lots of gray squirrels around here and pockets with quite a few black ones, so that article doesn't make sense to explain our situation since there are no fox squirrels in this part of the state. I have never seen one around here. The black ones here look identical in every way to the gray squirrels other than the color, they don't have any characteristics of a fox squirrel.

Bernie I think there’s a different definition of “fox squirrel” across the country. What we call fox squirrels are what I believe are ACTUALLY fox squirrels. They’re big, a lot bigger than a grey and come in a wide variety of colors. There’s no doubt when you see one that they aren’t a grey.

Listen to the distress call of your black squirrels. They will likely be the same as your grey squirrels. Fox squirrels have a much different call and they don't use it as much as the greys do.