Fox Squirrel (Sciurus niger)

Description

The Fox Squirrel is the largest of the tree squirrels found in Illinois. It gets its name from its color that sometimes resembles a red fox. Fox Squirrels have large bushy tail with yellow-tipped hairs.

Food Habits

The Fox Squirrel eats mostly hickory nuts and acorns, but also tulip poplar fruit, winged maple seeds, ripening corn along wooded areas, open buds, and various berries in season. Squirrels are popular for their cache, burying food for the winter.

Reproduction

Female Fox Squirrels produce a litter of 2-4 young born in late February-early March, sometimes June-July, occasionally August-early September. 2-year-old females may have 2 litters per year. Their gestation lasts about 45 days.

Habitat

Fox Squirrels are commonly found in woods, particularly oak-hickory; in the South, live oak and mixed forests, cypress and mangrove swamps, piney areas. 1 or 2 tree holes per acre (.4 ha) are needed for good habitat. The range from eastern U.S. (except New England, most of New Jersey, extreme west New York, and north and east Pennsylvania); east to the Dakotas, northeast Colorado, and east Texas.

The Fox Squirrel is most active in morning and late afternoon, burying nuts that it will locate in winter with its keen sense of smell, even under snow.

The Fox Squirrel is not very social, although they may feed in common areas and several individuals may den together in winter. It spends much time in trees feedin or cutting down nuts or sunbathing on a limb or in a tree crotch. In fall, it is often on the ground gathering and caching nuts, usually individually or in twos and threes. They use tree holes extensively, particularly in winter, often nesting in them with a family group of several other squirrels. Where trees holes are scarce, the Fox Squirrel builds leaf nests in tree crotches. Each squirrel usually maintains three to six active nests.

Fire is favorable to this species, as it helps to remove undergrowth and thus maintains spacing between trees, especially pines.