h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I spent the weekend at my Cousin's in Letchworth, Herts. She had been telling me about the black squirrels in her area. Now I had heard about these from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4365002.stm

They are a little smaller and slighter than ordinary greys, with a much less fluffy tail and a more docile temperament. In some respects, from the couple I saw, I would put its general features midway between a red and grey squirrel, but definitely, definitely black. There is no doubt about that.

Has anyone else seen them, or are they very localised. The BBC report says Cambridgeshire, but my Cousin is in Hertfordshire (which is the adjacent County. The area, very much like the rest of the UK, is overrun by the larger and more aggressive Greys

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has come across them.

There are indeed black squirrels in Cambridgeshire. There's a small colony (well, I've only ever seen two at a time, but there must be more) in the village where I live, although there are some grey squirrels too. It's very obvious when you see the two together that the black ones really are a different colour, and aren't just dark grey.

Here's a really, really bad photo that I took from my window:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v383/nybiara/6646269a.jpg

I saw one in London maybe ten years ago. It interesting that they are turning up in numbers now, like the red squirrel these throw-backs are usually killed by the more aggressive grey.

black is in with animals!

the Dutch island I go for holidays they found female black (normally grey) seal, which is very strange, because seal rescue centre had only seen one 2 other male black (normally grey) seals in past 20 yrs.

Moths in urban areas were selected for darker pigmentations during the coal burning era. I wonder if global warming might be selecting for black throw backs in animals further north or populations under stress is hwat's selecting here...

global warming it be, but I find annoying all "bad" nature changes placed under global warming, because are they "bad" or just evolution at work. I give this example: World's biggest fish 'shrinking' http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4620960.stm

I think these kind of things just happen as anomaly or evolutionary adjustment of nature! the anomalies probably happened the before media age we live in!

Over-exploitation of natural resources isn't evolution at work it's extinction. It just doesn't leave enough time and population for evolution to take place in complex oranisisms that have adapted to what was until recently stable environment and ecosystem.

the shark could have become smaller, because less "skin" means less opportunity for pollution.

do not dismiss the idea, because it might posible that some animals adjust faster, because lived millions of years.

Amphibians whose skin is pourous to pollutants wouldn't evolve to become smaller and thus have smaller surface area, they'd have to evolve skin that was less pourous to toxins in the environment overall.

With the whaleshark raching sexual maturity at around 30 years an adaption to over hunting limited only to larger whalesharks wouldn't take place within a decade.

Crocodiles are one of the earths oldest species, they're very tough animal, they can go for many moths without food and have an incredibly strong imune system if they've lived in the wild, however hunting by humans in Australia saw a massive crash in their population, only becoming a protected species saved them. The crocs there though are still experiencing developmental problems caused by pollutants put into the envoronment before regulationthe, the long-term effect of these are still to be seen on the strength of the species, the species - so old - couldn't I suspect have coped with both hunting and poorly regulated pollution.
It isn't a question of how old a species is, it's question of how specialised it has become during it's time on earth and how quickly it can breed and how big a population there is to breed within.