The Black Squirrel of Mirkwood.

[Boromir88]

My alma-mater's unofficial mascot is the Black Squirrel. Story goes, a guy from the university seeking to run wild-life tests on black squirrels and the environment, went into Canada and brought back 10 of the black squirrels to Kent State, here in Ohio.

Long story short, they've taken over and exerted their dominance among the indigenous squirrels. They're all over my part of Ohio now.

We even have an Annual Black Squirrel Festival for them...it's kind of weird. The part of Wiki about the black squirrels driving out the native squirrels in Kent, is no joke. All the students who go there can tell you stories of the wars between the black and underground rebel grey squirrels.

[narfforc]

They are having the same effect here in England, however I don't feel sorry for the Grey, it has done enormous damage to the Red.

[Morthoron]

What a racially squirrelophobic thread this is!

[Thinlómien]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_squirrel

They are very cute though!

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by narfforc

They are having the same effect here in England, however I don't feel sorry for the Grey, it has done enormous damage to the Red.

Might be a waste anyway– black squirrels are just greys with darker fur, apparently, not a separate species. So it's more like a hair colour becoming more common:

Originally Posted by Some biologist in a BBC news article I just looked up

The rise of the black is the biggest change in squirrel demographics since the native reds almost disappeared 50 years ago from large parts of England.

This is not because black squirrels compete with greys in the way that greys compete with reds (the larger greys eat more, and carry a pox that is deadly to reds), but because the gene for black fur is dominant, just like the gene for brown eyes is dominant over blue in humans.

Incidentally– what a surprise– it seems the black fur gives a survival advantage in deep forests...

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Incidentally– what a surprise– it seems the black fur gives a survival advantage in deep forests...

I live in the iddle of Toronto city, and black squirrels are more dominant then the grey ones here as well. I don't think that forests have to do a lot with it.

Also, red sqierrels have been dominant in quite a few places, including western Europe, a couple of decades ago. Red doesn't really fit for camouflage, so there has to be soething else.


P.S.: isn't this site supposed to be about Tolkien and not about the squirrel demographics?

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I live in the iddle of Toronto city, and black squirrels are more dominant then the grey ones here as well. I don't think that forests have to do a lot with it.

No, the point I'm making is, it's perfectly logical that the Mirkwood squirrels should be black. I don't think forests get deeper than that.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

P.S.: isn't this site supposed to be about Tolkien and not about the squirrel demographics?

See above.

Also... you're not suggesting we're about to be visited by the chat... you-know-what?

How meta.

[narfforc]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

P.S.: isn't this site supposed to be about Tolkien and not about the squirrel demographics?

It is about Tolkien, and where he got the idea of Black Squirrels to populate Mirkwood with, why not Black Rabbits or Black Foxes. It is to with Anborn and his desciption of Gollum, who scales trees and walls like a squirrel.