Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

Sciurus Niger, Black Squirrel When you move to a new place, it often comes with new sights and scenes. One of the more unexpected examples has been the color of the local squirrels. Squirrels in the northeast are already named for their predominant colors (with the exception of flying squirrels), but as the picture to the left shows, they also come in black. While they seem like a different species, these "black" squirrels are actually a melanistic morph of the regular Eastern Grey Squirrel ( Sciurus carolinensis ). In the past, this didn't prevent prominent scientists and naturalists from labeling them as such however.  Even though color morphs were certainly known about in the 1800s, there was still the constant taxonomic war known as "lumping and splitting". Even today, there are still battles and hypotheses being waged about certain species either being regarded as unique from one another or as simply being a subspecies. In biology, species and su

Lepus Sylvaticus,  Grey Rabbit* For the past few weeks, I have the regular pleasure of watching the behavior of a common mammal species out the back of my apartment. Eastern Cottontails ( Sylvilagus floridanus ) are a common sight on the "green patch" that fills the space between my apartment window and the Worker's Compensation Building not ten feet beyond.  D espite living in a mid-sized city in central New York, wildlife abounds on small green patches around the city, but are only noticed by those with the sharpest eyes and greatest awareness of the potential of their natural surroundings. My initial impression of the city was that it was a barren concrete wasteland populated largely by pigeons and sparrows, with rats running rampant in the sewers below. The only potential interlude to the hulking grey masses and hard rivers of tarmac lacing their way through a highly altered landscape are any number of city parks, playgrounds, and gardens. Syracuse is blessed