Black Squirrels

As mentioned in a comment to the last post, we definitely live in the land of blood-sucking critters! Leeches, ticks, mosquitoes, gnats, deer flies, and much more. However, we also live where the native squirrel is gothic black. That's right, our neighborhood squirrels are Black Squirrels. Their neighbors are little red squirrels. To be honest, the first few times I saw the black squirrels it was a little unnerving - they are awesomely similar to shadows on trees. I imagine this is a successful adaptation to plentiful predators in a dense forest, but coming from areas with no black squirrels it took some getting used to. According to Wikipedia (I know, not always the most accurate), black squirrels are native to North America, having been here pre-European conquest; they are a subgroup of grey squirrels. Sounds plausible, but I don't know how accurate.