Originally Posted by
Nicodeme
The black squirrels are just mutated versions of the ordinary eastern grey squirrel. Somewhere down the line, one turned melanistic, which means its fur turned black from having too much pigment. The same thing happens to many other animals. That's how we get black panthers, they're melanistic cougars or jaguars. That's also why we see some black squirrels with a grey tail, or vice versa.
With that said, I've noticed over the past, probably 6-7 years that the black ones have overtaken Royal Oak. Just last Saturday I saw 8 of them on a neighbor's lawn and 2 across the street. Never seen so many in one place, and all were black. I too have noticed that the ones that have gotten squished don't appear to be black.
In a book called Weird Michigan, I read that it was Kellogg who originally brought black squirrels to Michigan in the Battle Creek area to get rid of red squirrels. I guess they were being pests.