Eastern Fox Squirrel

Description:

The Fox Squirrel is the largest species of tree squirrel native to North America. They thrive in areas with trees such as oak, hickory, walnut, and pine that produce winter-storable foods like nuts. Their diet includes tree nuts, tree buds, insects, tubers, bulbs, roots, bird eggs, seeds of pines and spring-fruiting trees, and fungi. Agricultural crops such as corn, soybeans, oats, wheat, and fruit are also eaten. In Michigan, eastern fox squirrels feed on a variety of foods throughout the year. Spring foods are mainly tree buds and flowers, insects, bird eggs, and seeds of red maple (Acer rubrum), silver maple (A. saccharinum), and elms. Summer foods include a variety of berries, plum and cherry pits, fruits of basswood (Tilia americana), fruits of box elder (Acer negundo), black oak acorns, hickory nuts, seeds of sugar (A. saccharum) and black maple (A. nigrum), grains, insects, and unripe corn. Fall foods consist mainly of acorns, hickory nuts, beechnuts, walnuts, butternuts (J. cinerea), and hazelnuts. Caches of acorns and hickory nuts are heavily used in winter. They have two types of shelters: leaf nests and tree dens. They may have two tree cavity homes or a tree cavity and a leaf nest. Tree dens are preferred over leaf nests during the winter and for raising young. When den trees are scarce, leaf nests are used year-round. They are strictly diurnal, non-territorial, and spend more of their time on the ground than most other tree squirrels.

Habitat:

Eastern North America (excluding New England) - south to Florida. Woodlands & urban areas with trees.