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What’s That? Black squirrels

By: Louisa Shepard, Penn Today Date: Jan 15, 2025
A black squirrel on a tree
A black squirrel on College Green in the fall of 2024.

This is …

A common question on campus tours is about uncommon residents, the black squirrels.

They live …

The black squirrels are regularly seen on College Green, scampering between the historic buildings. “We have five black squirrels that live in the trees outside, and we have taken them as our printshop mascots,” says Jessica Peterson, director of the Common Press, located in the Fisher Fine Arts Library building. The Press is holding an open studio event “Black Squirrel Pattern Postcard Printing” on Jan. 17, reprising an original two-color decorative pattern used for a “Black Squirrel Pattern Printing and Button Making” event last spring.

They are cool because

Sarah Tomke, a postdoctoral researcher with the Wildlife Futures Program in the School of Veterinary Medicine on the New Bolton Center campus, is a geneticist and wildlife biologist. One of her projects is to research fox squirrels in the forests of Pennsylvania; they are a reddish-grey hue and a bit larger than the typical grey squirrels common to Philadelphia. 

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