Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)

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Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciuridae: Sciurus carolinensis)

There is another Gray Squirrel on the west coast called the Western Gray Squirrel, so the species in the east is technically the Eastern Gray Squirrel. Everyone in the east just calls it the Gray Squirrel. The Gray Squirrel is possibly the most visible mammal of the Eastern Deciduous Forest and is found in every yard, park, wood, and street in the eastern United States and extreme southeastern Canada.

Identifying Features: The Eastern Gray Squirrel is generally gray, but is suffused with light brown in the summer time. It has a long, bushy tail with vague white bands of hairs. The belly is white. There is a pure black melanic form common in some parts of the United States.

Similar Species: Two other tree-living squirrels live within the range of the Eastern Gray Squirrel. The Red Squirrel (photo on bottom left) is dull red-brown and much smaller (7 to 8 inches long) than the Eastern Gray Squirrel (8 to 10 inches in length). There is also a black line between the red-brown of the back and the white of the belly between the front and hind legs. The Red Squirrel is most common in the boreal regions of North America, but it also lives in the northern portions of the Eastern Deciduous Forest. The Fox Squirrel is very similar to the Eastern Gray Squirrel and it can be very difficult to tell the two apart. The Fox Squirrel (photo near the bottom on the left) is larger (10 to 15 inches in length) than the Eastern Gray Squirrel. The distribution of the Fox Squirrel is nearly identifcal to that of the Eastern Gray Squirrel. The Fox Squirrel is not found in urban areas as often as the Eastern Gray Squirrel. Throughout most of its range the belly of the Fox Squirrel is dull yellow-white or tan-white. There are two very distinctive populations of the Fox Squirrel. In the south the Fox Squirrel has a black patch over the eye. In some mid-Atlantic populations Fox Squirrels are uniform gray all over.

Habitat: Eastern Gray Squirrels are found in hardwood wooded areas or suburban and urban areas with trees.

Food: Eastern Gray Squirrels feed on a great variety of nuts, seeds, fungi, fruits, and sometimes the tender layer of tree bark. Eastern Gray Squirrels commonly store acorns and other nuts in holes in the ground and are an important component in the regeneration of forests because not all of the nuts are recovered.

Behavior: Eastern Gray Squirrels are diurnal and live for the most part in trees. They next in holes in trees, or build nests of leaves in the branches of trees. The large clumps of leaves you see in trees in the winter are generally squirrel nests. Squirrels communicate with a series of sharp barks usually accompanied with flicks of their tails.

Reproduction: Eastern Gray Squirrels have two broods a year. Gestation takes about 40 days and the young are weaned after two months. There are 3 to 5 young per litter.