Stay away from my acorns, or I’ll spray!
Christie, one of my friends on the message board, alerted me to this rather odd looking squirrel that has been making the rounds of the internet recently. Ever seen a black and white squirrel? Did you even think it was possible? What has ES been doing behind my back with the skunkettes?
STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!
Here’s the link to the story on Viralnova, which documents some pictures taken by a 
Reddit user of a squirrel hanging around the grounds of his office in San Jose, California. While none of the pictures provided is really a good, clean shot of the squirrel in skunk’s clothing (hereby referred to as a “squnk”), it’s still plain to see the animal is one of our arboreal friends…. but it’s hard to wrap your head around that fact due to the strange coloring. I have seen pictures of both black squirrels and white squirrels before…. but the best of both worlds?
Who is this mangy impostor?
It turns out that this “tuxedo squirrel” is what educated people refer to as a “piebald“. From what I can make out from a whole five minutes of research on the subject, piebalds are essentially semi-albinos. We’ve all heard of albinos… animals born without any color pigmentation, bearing snow white fur and pink skin with freaky red eyes. Piebalds only have blotches of skin without natural pigmentation… those would be the white spots on our squnk. Black is generally the companion “natural” color for piebalds, which makes up the rest of the critter’s body, and thus why this bushy tailed rodent could be mistakenly wooed by this guy:
Oooh, la la! Come to Pepe, my pretty piebald!
Piebaldism is best known for showing up in horses…
Rainbow Donkey, I am not.
But can also be found in deer…
I’m a cow, Mr. Hunter. Cow… you know, mooooo!!!!
Dogs…
I’m cute… I think.
Foxes!
Who wouldn’t want a cutie like him?
And yes…. even snakes!!!!
Pet me!
Piebalds can be found in most mammalian species. Like albinos, due to their lack of ability to camouflage themselves from their predators, piebalds generally do not have long lifespans… often being offed before they can reproduce and make more white-blotched freaks. Awwww, that’s too bad, the world could use more freaks.
Like adorable pigladillos!
So the next time you see a black and white critter scampering through your yard, take a closer look. It just might be a beautiful little squnk!
Or…. maybe not.
Oh, I love that squnk picture! I imagine him just like Pepe, singing “Alouette” as he scampers around 🙂
Vive le squnk!
I differ on your last piece of advice, ESN. Anybody stopping to differentiate between a true skunk and a piebald squirrel, or squnk, is just asking for a horrible squirt between the eyeballs. Squnks may be playful, but skunks are fraidy-cats who shoot first and and leave you asking questions about how to get that schtink off of everything you touch later.
Yes, that advice was meant to be a little ironic….
And t went over my head, ESN. Right there you know that I had a dog skunk-sprayed twice, hence my knee-jerk reaction to anything skunk-related.
Thanks for the new word for my vocabulary; I never heard of “piebalds” before.
Neither had I. I learned something along with my readers today!
uh-hum – I’m black and white…. maybe not as pretty as that squnk which is really intriguing to this little oinker. I think it’s kind of cool and unique. XOXO – Bacon
It is very cool and unique! And perhaps you have some piebald in you as well! Bacon the Piebald Pig! That has a nice ring to it…
OMP. It does! XOXO – Bacon
Piebald or not, I’m keeping my distant from the squnk–my dog, at age 12, has never met a skunk she didn’t want to nip in the butt–and I pay the price. It doesn’t seem to bother her, but those tomato juice rubdowns get old. And I don’t much care for that snake, either.
I wouldn’t go near the snake either…. or a squnk, unless it was leaping through trees….
Glad I saw this on EFB so it could inspire you. I have only ever heard of a piebald horse before. A piebald skunk may have a better chance just because many animals other than humans may think skunk first when looking at it.
I would think humans would be the animal most fooled by the squnk. I don’t think a hawk would care what it swoops up off the ground…
Oh my goodness this was interesting. I never knew there could be a piebald squirrel. I wonder if the other critters react to it differently or just think “cool coat he has there.”
There is so much about the world of squirrels that even I am unaware of… but when I find out something as cool as this, I just have to share it with my sciurine lovers! Now there must be a piebald possum out there somewhere!
I agree with you, this world really needs more freaks. My dad met a squnk once, but it was an unpleasent meet&greet with Pepe Le Pew :o)
I’ve only met two real skunks before…. and by meet, I mean watched from afar…. very afar. Since it was after midnight both times, I knew neither could have been a squnk…
I not really one for snakes (yuk) but I have to say, that is quite a striking specimen.
I hope Mr Squnk will be ok, what with his camouflage malfunction and all.
I love black and white animals but that squirrel looks like there was someone who photo shopped it! No offense but really is this a squirrel that is possibly a ‘punk’ (as in you have been punk’d?) or a ‘prank?’
There are other photos of it from different angles in the article. Piebald squirrels have been observed, so I am siding with our squnk being legit.
A squnk must be crocheted!
That would be an excellent idea!
Neat 😀