between fox and red squirrels
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Here in Minnesota anyway, The Fox Squirrel is the larger of the red squirrels. The Pine Squirrel is a very small red Squirrel,as well as distructive. I have always known the larger one to be the Fox squirrel, and the little Pine squirrel to be known as the Red squirrel. Hope this mkes scense it's been a long day. It will be intersting to hear other opinions on them.
Mark.
Each animal and plant os far described in the literature has a Classification scheme attached to it. Humans are known as Homo sapiens, which is composed of two parts, Homo which is the genus, and sapiens which is the specific type of Homo. Humans belong to the Order Primates, along with related Genera like Gorilla gorilla, Chimpanzee pan, Orangutan, etc. A larger category is Mammalia which has in it all mammals.
The closer related two species are, then they often share the same Genus name. For instance, Fox Squirrels are Sciurus niger, and Gray Squirrels (Those in Eastern US anyway) is Sciurus carolineus. Well, the Red Squirrel is a smaller animal all together and isn't even in the same Genus - it is in Tamaisciurus.
A comparable scheme might be the Mule Deer and the White-tail. They are the same Genus, but Elk are in a different genus. They both are in Cervidae though, so they would be close relatives.
All of this is from a Museum/Taxonomic/Mammalogist point of view.
The real difference is that it takes 2 red squirrels for a meal but only one Fox squirrel (And the Fox squirrel will most likely taste better)
The fox squirrel you refer to is only a color phase of that particular animal. The scientific name Sciurus niger implies that it is a black squirrel. Though the black phase is common in southern climates, the grey with varied black and white markings tend to be more common. As you move up the lattitude gradients, the red phase becomes more and more common until it tends to be the ONLY color whereby people assume that the "fox" intended it to be red.
The red squirrel (tamiasciurus) has reddish upper body pelage in summer and grayish in winter.
Around here, in WI we have grey squirrels, and the slightly larger fox squirrel wich is a redish colr like a fox. we also have chipmunk size devils called red squirrels. Some people misname the big foxies as red squirrels due to the appearance- thus the confusion. Someone might say they have a red squirrel to mount when in reality they have a foxy, red in color
We live in the country with a little woods behind the house in the Viroqua, WI area. Recently we have been visted by a pair of albino fox squirrels. I was not sure about whether they were gray or fox squirrels until I saw the pair playing with two of their normal siblings. These are not mature. My first sighting was of a larger squirrel and I assumed it was a foxy but subsequenty it looked so much smaller that I figured it was a gray. Well, when we saw the pair with their siblings, that clinched it. Suspect the first albino I saw several weeks ago was their mother. Have seen many squirrels including black grays before in my 60 years but never an albino.