The Autumn Gatherer

by Janice Pariza

Title

The Autumn Gatherer

Artist

Janice Pariza

Medium

Photograph - Photography Art Photo Painting

Description

A Black Squirrel in Canfield, Ohio gathers leaves for his nest.
My friends often describe squirrels, to my great indignation, as “rats with prettier tails.” I will spare you my feelings on this—suffice it to say that, obviously, the trash-scavenging conditions of squirrels in urban areas has more to do with human encroachment on their habitat than any fault of their own (also, I really love rats)—but here in Canfield we have some squirrel variation that invites greater appreciation. Of course I’m referring here to the beautiful jet-black squirrels that frolic and scavenge about the landscape.

The black squirrels often surprise newcomers. But they are just “a melanistic subgroup of the eastern grey squirrel,” as Wikipedia has it. They are fairly plentiful in Ohio. This claim is backed up by a radio story from North Country Public Radio, which alleges that the black subgroup of the eastern grey squirrel species is becoming more common in the Northeast. We are not sure exactly why this is, but perhaps Jolly Old England would be a good case study: Early in the 1900s grey squirrels were brought to England and pushed some of the native squirrels out. Recently black squirrels were introduced there from North America, and now have been outperforming grey squirrels. So what is it about black squirrels that gives them the evolutionary edge?

In evolutionary biology there is a story of “peppered moths,” which have a grey version and a black “sooty-colored version.” It’s a classic story of natural selection in the wild. (By the way, this is all from that radio program.) The phenomenon is called “industrial melanism.” In England in the 1800s, during the Industrial Revolution, there was a good deal of air pollution and factory soot. The trees downwind of factory towns became black and sooty, giving the advantage to the black moths, which had better camouflage, and so their population rose and outdid the grey moths.


In any case, at some point there was a mutation that gave some squirrels black fur, and for some reason they became relatively successful in certain areas. Then perhaps they were introduced to other areas, or just spread there naturally. They belong to the same species, so when black squirrels get with grey squirrels, or other black squirrels, fertile baby black squirrels result, sometimes in mixed litters with other colors. Perhaps these days the grey squirrel has a greater advantage camouflage-wise, but in urban areas where large predators are driven away by human activity the black squirrels could just as easily flourish.





The mystery! The intrigue! The more I look into this, the more I’m fascinated. This is my favorite theory that I found: Apparently the thing that might be giving black squirrels the edge, according to the aforementioned radio story, is that the males seem to have more testosterone. Probably a female squirrel is more willing to get with the squirrel that has higher testosterone levels given that he works out and drives a sweet car. Also, picture this: A grey squirrel approaches a nut—possibly one that struck someone’s head outside of WesWings—and then a black squirrel approaches and makes angry squirrel noises. In this situation the grey squirrel is more likely to back off, owing to its lowered levels of aggressiveness. Long story short, the black squirrel appears more able to protect its nuts. No pun intended.


The black color is most likely the result of a mutation, which probably occurred by chance (as most mutations do). Without a scientific study, it is impossible to determine if the black phenotype is adaptive or not.

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Uploaded

November 20th, 2017

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