The plight of the disappearing red squirrel is being highlighted in events dedicated to the native British species. But its tormenter, the American grey squirrel, is itself being slowly overwhelmed in parts of the country by the little-known black squirrel.
Black squirrel in garden in Bedfordshire (Simon George on Flickr) ... and going after food for the birds
When Alison Thomas first saw a black squirrel dart in front of her car, she nearly swerved off the road in surprise. That was in July 2003, and as a biologist, she found this strange creature a beguiling research topic - not least to disprove the family joke that she'd imagined it.
I decided to start my own investigations and discovered, to my great relief and to the chagrin of my family, that squirrels can indeed sometimes be black and that there is a rapidly expanding population of black squirrels in Cambridgeshire, says Dr Thomas, of Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.
The black squirrel is of the same species as the grey bushy-tailed creatures familiar from park and woodland walks. Its dark coat is the result of a naturally occurring mutation of the gene that governs fur pigmentation.
Other than colour, black squirrels have the same size, behaviour and habitat as greys.
It's the same specific mutation found in the black squirrels of North America. The chances of that same mutation occurring by chance in the UK, and separately in the United States, is tiny.
This shows that at some point, black squirrels were brought into this country from North America.
Full story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11444893
