From what little i have found out about this it would appear that.
Both, red and grey squirrels can produce, black, white or albino offspring.
It appears that the black or white (as in many species) can occur when the gene for a white or black area of the creature gets switched on all over the colour genes, we see a single colour individual.
I’m still not clear what causes albino’s, but this is a recessive gene so an offspring has to get the albino gene from both parents for it to be expressed in that individual.
The outcome seems to revolve around an enzyme for melanin production that is not functioning so no colour pigmentation including in the eyes leading to the pink looking eyes along with the apparently white surface (skin or hair). Its really curious as to why this has persisted across all vertebrates and can even appear in plants, if it conveys no advantage then we would expect it to have disappeared long ago in evolution.
One possible point of interest, is that when we talk about white individuals (like polar bears), they are not actually white, but lack any pigmentation. the hairs reflect and refract light in a myriad of directions (all the refracted colours combine to produce white).
Perhaps another example of the effect is that we all know a drop of water is clear, yet clouds are white (or appear to be).
As melanin was mentioned above i should mention that the opposite to albanism is melanism, which is one way to get a completely black individual in any species, these are often referred to as a melanestic example (which do occur in moths and are confusingly sometimes referred to as “form carbonaria”).
When i can confidently write all the above in welsh …(pigs might fly:).
It might well be an advantage to be albino in snowy places like the Arctic or high mountains!! Unless pink eyes are ultra-sensitive to UV?
We might think that melanism is the normal for some species, notably our own! We are all ‘out of Africa’ and our ancestors clearly had a lot of melanin in their skin and hair!! As we moved north, being pale began to have advantages, so we bred accordingly!!
If you write stuff like all that in Welsh, I shall have to ask for it to have subtitles!!!
My kids are concerned for some ‘baby’ caterpillars whose eggs were laid on the netting of the trampoline in
the garden. We have been unsuccessful at identifying them so far.
The eggs hatched yesterday, and quite a few seem to be alive and active. But they weren’t laid on anything edible. There is a cherry tree nearby, but they don’t seem to fancy nibbling the leaves that have been offered to them.
I wonder if JP or anyone else would have any idea what they are or what they might be tempted to eat?
Well, it’s difficult from the photo’s but the time of year would fit with “Grey dagger” though there are several other hairy caterpillars.
If you shake half a dozen into a sandwich box which has kitchen roll in the bottom (to soak up excess moisture).
then offer a selection of plants (hawthorn, blackthorn, oak, silver birch, bramble are popular with many species) Put a sprig of each in the box and see which is disappearing.
Keep box out of direct sunlight with lid laid on to but not pressed on so some air can circulate.
Inspect often and change box and food daily, within a week you may see them changing skin to next size up and a photo may have a real chance of identification. (enjoy).
Thank you! We’ve just had an attempted rescue mission, but I’m not holding out a great deal of hope. The only one of those plants readily available in our garden is brambles! We added various other common things like roses, budlias and bindweed…(Where are the stinging nettles when you want them?!) Fingers crossed!
According to wikipedia the New Zealand glow worms are the larvae of a knat (small biting fly), whereas the English glow worm is a type of beetle, interesting how i find nature modular in that processes like light production can appear in very different species, American fire fly (so adult not larvae) and of course deep water fish.
@ramblingjohn can you help? No pics I’m afraid!
Janet told me yesterday that my little toy poodle, Toffi, had been chasing little black butterflies on their walk! As Janet was walking her lurcher and Jack Russell (Sasha and Hamish) she could hardly get out her phone and get pics while keeping hold of three leads!
I queried black as a colour and asked if they could have been moths. Janet knows as little as I do and had presumed only butterflies would be flying around in daytime.
I found an identification site on Google and the options for butterflies in Scotland did not seem to include a black one, whereas there seemed to be 2 possible small black moths (Forester and Chimney Sweeper!). Would any moths be flying around in numbers in the day time?
For butterflies i would not discount the ringlet or in your area mountain ringlet which can have very dark forms or look black in poor light.
For day flying moths the cinnabar or burnet species have a black base colour, they both have red markings again not obvious in poor light.
Maybe you can return to the area tomorrow with a camera.
heddiw yn cynnwys ymweliad â gerddi botaneg Rhydychen - Today included a visit to the botanic gardens Oxford.
I’m sorry John, it turns out Janet was conflating two events! It was a while back that she saw the little black butterflies, so no pics likely now! Toffi was actually chasing what Janet now describes as little white butterflies with no markings she could see. I don’t think pics of those are likely, but my search of the net causes me to suspect they were not actually white!!
p.s. my walking days have gone. It is all I can do to stagger down our front steps and along the path to our car park! (These houses weren’t built with garages),
p,s, Dw’i hoffi coffi a dw’i hoffi blodau coffi! (I use gog for a lot, but always de for liking!)
Nawr te -
This is not outside, but they were outside before they were picked! It is to show the enormous!!! size of our mefusen gwyllt!!
That is a little penny!!
@tatjana lives in a beautiful area of a beautiful country. She told me that this stork’s nest used to be situated, somewhat inconveniently, on a neighbour’s roof so the local community built the tower and moved the nest. Gives a whole different meaning to the idea of building a bird’s nest.
She is also blessed with the ability to see beauty with her heart, which needs no eyesight at all, which is why she is so supportive and encouraging of us all here at SSIW and why she gets so upset when the world is mean or unkind or just plain stupid.
Sorry for the poor photo, but we spotted this little guy making his way down the lane at the back of the house last night. This is the second time we’ve seen a hedgehog in a couple of weeks, and my daughter swears it was a different one as the other one was bigger.
I was surprised, as I have hardly ever seen a hedgehog before. I wonder if it’s a good or a bad sign to see them out and about in the daytime? We wondered if it could be to do with the time of year, collecting food for babies or something? It didn’t seem in the least bit bothered by us all watching it!
He seems to be legging it at quite some speed! I am afraid I’m not an expert on why he/she is out in the day. All ours on Gower only seemed to move around in the dark, including the one who came into my yard and had to be lifted out away from my barking dogs who had found about pricked noses! I found that oven gloves are not proof against prickles!!
size of our mefusen gwyllt!!
