Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Weasel or Squirrel?

I'm going through a few received pictures from my trail cams and I get to these two images of a small mammal in the small beech tree on the right. My first thought is that it is just another squirrel, but then I realized the bright patch of white, the tail, and the posture of a weasel.


These images aren't at all fantastic, I know, but  this camera is set again at the same spot and another is now placed near it.  Hopefully more (and clearer) results will come in next week when the cameras are checked again.  The date-stamp on these pictures is not correct, but the time is.

Here's a cropped version:  It still seems kind of squirrel like, but that white patch all the way up to its chin tells me it is not a squirrel.  Squirrels do have a whitish color on their bellies and necks, but the color on this animal is bright white and goes the whole way along the underside of the animal. The tail hanging down is a bit bushy for a weasel, but long and thin for an eastern gray squirrel.
What do you think?  Is it a squirrel? Am I completely missing something?  Email me or comment below.

8 comments:

  1. Brian- can you email me those pics? I want to zoom in/out....thanks!

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  2. I lean squirrel but am out of my comfort zone with east coast critters. The tail looks too bushy for weasel and the face and muzzle look squirrel to me. FWIW we have invasive Eastern Gray's out here with all kinds of white on them that "shouldn't" be there. Even all white ones and other various amounts of luecistic markings.

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    1. The more I look at it the more I think it might be a squirrel as well. I agree with you about the face and muzzle.

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  3. It's a red squirrel. They're smaller than a gray, larger than a chipmunk.

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    1. That's what I'm thinking now the more I look at it. The face is a dead giveaway of a squirrel.

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  4. The consensus from a professor I sent it to, and the guys in my office all seem to agree: Red squirrel.

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    1. These results match up with mine for the people I've asked. Thanks for the help!

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