Fox or Eastern Gray?

[Gray Squirrel]

When I look at pictures of fox squirrels and gray squirrels I think I can see a difference, but I am not sure I can always tell them apart. Is there any distinguishing feature that will tell you if a squirrel is a fox squirrel or an eastern gray? Fox squirrels are usually bigger but there could be a small fox squirrel or a large gray, and what about young squirrels. If a fox squirrel is realest where there are no grays or vis versa will this be a problem for the squirrel? There would be not mats for it.

I am putting this in this section because I do not know where else to put it. Is there a section somewhere to put question you want answered but it is not really any other kind of help you are asking for.

[HRT4SQRLS]

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When I first came on this board I couldn't tell the difference either. Now it's very obvious to me. The top 2 pics are fox squirrels. The bottom pic is an eastern grey squirrel.
The biggest difference for me is the color. As you can see fox squirrels are a lot more orange than grey squirrels. That does vary though as some fox squirrels are pumpkin orange on the belly and others are actually cream colored on the belly but even the cream belly ones are somewhat orange on the back. Another difference is the ears. Fox squirrel ears are smaller and sit further back on the head. I think a fox squirrels front arms are shorter and very chunky. Another difference is the size. An adult fox squirrel can be twice the size of a grey squirrel.

I'm not a good person to describe the difference as I have only seen 2 fox squirrels in my life. One had an orange belly... the other has a cream belly. We don't have those type of fox squirrels in FL. We have a completely different type of fox squirrel in FL.

[CritterMom]

Foxers have BLACK nails, even as babies, too.

[island rehabber]

Foxers have BLACK nails, even as babies, too.

I believe the pads of foxers' feet are also black, whereas Eastern Greys have little pink pads -- even the black ones.
The one area where it still can be difficult to tell foxers from greys at first is when we look at southwestern fox squirrels -- in Texas, for example. They are more of a dark grey and yellowish-tan, instead of orange. This foxer was raised and released by Sandra & David, the "Garden 71's" , rehabbers who who moved from NY to Texas. He's pretty typical of the Texan foxers -- not orange at all. I think Penny Cash's Resilie is also this color.

[Gray Squirrel]

I believe the pads of foxers' feet are also black, whereas Eastern Greys have little pink pads -- even the black ones.
The one area where it still can be difficult to tell foxers from greys at first is when we look at southwestern fox squirrels -- in Texas, for example. They are more of a dark grey and yellowish-tan, instead of orange. This foxer was raised and released by Sandra & David, the "Garden 71's" , rehabbers who who moved from NY to Texas. He's pretty typical of the Texan foxers -- not orange at all. I think Penny Cash's Resilie is also this color.

You have sent me a picture and I see the box with an X in it. When I have seen this and clicked on the x nothing happens. Another person sent me some picture and the pictures could be seen without doing anything. How do I view attacked photos. Squirrels seem to me to change color so fast sometime it is hard to keep track of them. There has been some cinnamon colored squirrels on my deck lately. When you see a squirrel the color of its palm is probably one of the last thing you notice. I will have to pay attention to the color of the palms of the squirrels that visit my deck. I think they are all Eastern Gray except may be one younger one but I am not positive. How does one lone fox squirrel do when the only other squirrels around are eastern grays? I think the biggest squirrels I see are about 18 inches nose to tip of tail. How positive of a way to tell the difference is the color of their palms?

I have not seen pinkies in real life but someone said that fox squirrel have black nail even when small. I thought all squirrels had black nails when small and that the way to tell a baby squirrel form baby rat was that squirrels have nails even when small.

[Trooper]

Hi ECole: I wanted to answer your question "You have sent me a picture and I see the box with an X in it. When I have seen this and clicked on the x nothing happens." because I had the same problem, at work and home computers and had my multi-billion dollar company's IT department look into it and the answer is as follows: Internet explorer web browser program, from Microsoft does not allow the view of JPG type picture files directly onto the screen" This seems to be a problem with all versions of Internet explorer and with pictures in JPG format embedded in a "bulletin board" or other "chat" communication tools.

I have chased this problem for almost 3.5 months, and the only way I found to solve it is to use Google Chrome browser, which does not suffer from this shortcoming.

Speaking of suffering, I wanted to spare you the same I had to endure!

Regards,

Trooper's dad

[Diggie's Friend]

Have a gander at these gray beauties; yet these aren't Eastern Gray squirrels.

And heeere she comes, the Delmarva Fox Squirrel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_f8M7Wt7M

You can tell it is a foxer by the way it moves; the lope, and the running walk are classic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtMjCeeGelc

Glad that they are regaining ground in their numbers.

This doesn't mean though that this subspecies of the Eastern Fox Squirrel has made it all the way back,

rather a one level down grade from Endangered status to Imperiled.

[TubeDriver]

[Diggie's Friend]

Here are a few photos of cream-white bellied Mid-western Fox squirrels (a subspecies of the Eastern Fox Squirrel Species); two from Berkley CA. and two from the Mid-west parent population, from which Civil War Veterans brought pairs to the West coast, that they released in So. Ca. From there others were released in the SF. Bay area, Portland Oregon, and WA. State.

This is how our yard came to have these non indigenous squirrels live among us.

The last two photos are of Albi, one of the first white bellied fox squirrels we have seen to frequent our yard.