White Squirrels of Rochester
By Mike • February 6, 2009 • 11 commentsAs a native New Yorker, I’ve seen my share of squirrels. Our standard Sciuridae is the Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciuridae carolinensis) and while most of these rambunctious rodents are indeed gray, they sometimes come in other flavors. The Bronx was beset by hordes of Black Squirrels, melanistic members of this common species. So black squirrels have never been a surprise to me. But when I moved to Rochester, I quickly encountered another iteration of the Eastern Gray: the white squirrel!
Yes, the mythical white squirrel does indeed exist. In fact, it lives in my front lawn! We’ve got at least two of these ghostly nut-gobblers scrambling from tree to neighborhood tree.
Those of you acquainted with albinism have already realized that this squirrel lacks the utter absence of pigment and pink eyes that typically marks albino mammals. Instead, it is likely that these squirrels are leucistic. Whatever they are, white squirrels are just as eager to assault my bird feeders as their gray kin.
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White is probably an advantage for squirrels in your area.
John, you’re not kidding!
Are you sure they’re not just covered in snow?
Probably just a little too much peroxide.
Run! It’s the ghost squirrels!
Neat! I’ve seen the melanistic squirrels, and once a really, truly albino squirrel in Prospect Park, but never anything like your photos there.
Speaking of mammals, do you ever get up by the old Seneca Army depot? The population of white deer there is something else.
I think they are cute
Wow, very cool! I’ve seen black squirrels in Elkhart County in Indiana, as well as in my own yard here in northeastern Wisconsin, but NEVER have I seen one of those! Thank you for sharing….makes their persistent annoyance all the more interesting, at least!
When I worked in Marietta, PA, Lancaster County, white squirrels (pure white, not the gray-ish ones such as you saw) were somewhat common. The squirrels were not albinos, and locals told me the area “always” had had white squirrels. I never saw more than several of them at once, so I don’t know how widespread they might be. It sure is fun to see the different colors of them, though. I’ve also seen the black variety in PA along the PA/Ohio border.
Carolyn H.
I saw a squirrel very similar to this one on Harvard Street yesterday about 4:30 pm. They are truly magnificent creatures to behold in person.
I have lived in Rochester and have never seen a white squirrel until just now, November 7, 2009. And it looks exactly like the one in the photo. I live in Irondequoit. Where are you, Mike?