Squirrel Diversity

I thought that all squirrels were grey until I visited the capital of West Virginia – Charleston.  During my visit, I saw my first black and tan colored squirrels.

Apparently, the squirrels I have seen my whole life are called Eastern Grey Squirrels and the black one I saw in Charleston is a melanistic subgroup of this species.   I did some research and there are more than 200 species of squirrel in the world including ground, flying, and tree squirrels.

On the National Geographic website, you can listen to a squirrel and check out different pictures (http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/squirrel/).