Gray squirrels are everywhere in central Arkansas, scampering up tree trunks, flicking their tails, and lying stretched out and prone to beat the heat. How much do you know about them? Eastern gray squirrels, Sciurus carolinensis, are native to Arkansas.
They have one or two litters each year, with one to four kits in a litter. Squirrels eat not only nuts but also mushrooms, insects, small birds and their eggs, and other squirrels. If you feed birds, you probably know squirrels eat most types of bird food. They hoard food and remember where it’s cached. Gray squirrels can be other colors.
Populations of black gray squirrels are not unknown, and there’s at least one such population in Little Rock. Finally, squirrels are one of very few mammals that can descend a tree head-first.