Black Squirrel

Black mutant squirrels might sound like something from a horror film, but the reality is that they could soon be arriving in our county’s woodlands.Researchers have predicted that growing colonies of black squirrels —. aggressive variants of the grey squirrel that have a chunk of DNA missing - will soon be populating East Anglia. Dr Alison Thomas from the Anglia Ruskin University, together with her undergraduate student Helen McRobie, researched the black squirrel for more than a year, after noticing the variation in 2004 while driving near the Cambridge establishment.

Dr Thomas said that although grey squirrels have chased out almost all of England’s native red squirrels, fears that the new squirrels will pose a threat to the few remaining red squirrels in the county "There are still red squirrels in Thetford Forest and I don’t think they stand much chance," she told the Evening News. "A lot of people have told me that the blacks are more aggressive, and that could be because of increased levels of testosterone. I was so surprised to see my first ever black squirrel. When I relayed the story to my family they were keen to know all about them and so I made it my mission to find out more.

"Compared to the DNA sequence of the grey squirrel, the sequence from the black squirrel has a chunk missing. The dense black colour results from an imbalance in the information and analyse the DNA, we had to wait for one to be run over or something like that." She added: "I’m sure they will spread to Norfolk." The first sighting of a black squirrel in England was in 1912, and yellow and even white squirrels have been spotted in Hertfordsh ire since.

The subspecies was known in America as far back as 1849, when the wildlife artist John James Audubon depicted the Lousiana black squirrel in one of his 150 Plates of America. In 1972, a governing body in Kansas passed laws protecting the black squirrel, imposing a 25 dollar fine for harming one.