Red wolves really get some people’s emotions going.
Let me repeat that:
The animal is about 3/4 coyote and 1/4 wolf. You could get that same result by breeding a wolf to a coyote and then breeding that animal to a coyote.
The big hypothesis for the red wolf is that is an ancient species of wolf, either ancestral to the “gray” wolf and the coyote or just ancestral to the “gray” wolf.
On this hypothesis, which was created by making inferences from the fossil record and then confirmed using very small samples of DNA from “red wolves” and wolves from Eastern Canada that have “coyote” mtDNA, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to maintain populations of “pure red wolves” in captivity and in some ranges in the Southeastern US. The Canadian government is using that same sort of science to preserve a supposed “Eastern wolf” species called “Canis lycaon.”
The genome-wide assays seem totally falsify the entire premise.
And I think they generally have.
Some will complain that the vonHoldt study didn’t use enough samples of red wolves. This is wrong. All “pure” red wolves living today descend from 14 individuals. It is an inbred population with very little genetic variation. A larger sample is much more likely to produce the same results.
The case for the red wolf as a unique species is very tenuous and requires us to accept assumptions that don’t make much sense. Why is it that Audubon thought the red wolf was just a color phase, not a unique species? Why is that no one has been able to provide any conclusive proof that the black wolves that Bartram encountered in Florida are the same thing as the coyote-like canids that we call red wolves today?
These questions have not been answered, and the only attempts at answers I’ve been able to come across are either throwing fossils at me or more DNA studies that look at very small parts of the genome– y-chromosome, mtDNA, and microsatellite studies won’t cut it. Now, this genome-wide analysis also looked at only a small part of the genome, but it looked at more of the genome than those studies do. It may have had fewer individual samples from each individual specimen, but if you have a big same that looks at just tiny parts of a whole, you can only generalize about the tiny parts. You can start to make broader generalizations when one examines a bigger part of the whole, even if the sample size is low.
Any careful reading of where the red wolf fits in the genome-wide assays shows that it isn’t even fair to call it a wolf.
It’s almost entirely coyote. It has almost as much coyote in it as Eastern coyotes from New York State.
Coyotes are of dubious conservation value. Yes, even coyotes with a bit of wolf ancestry are still coyotes, and in most states, they are regulated in the way coyotes are.
The only exception to this is the so-called “red wolf.”
And this brings me to the nonsense:
The Wild Muse has a write up on her blog that argues that the state of North Carolina should ban the night hunting of coyotes because it would jeopardize red wolf recovery.
She’s making certain assumptions here.
But one she is sort of tacitly admitting. Red wolves look very much like Eastern coyotes.
And the reason for this is pretty clear: they are coyotes.
Eastern coyotes, like red wolves, are coyotes with wolf ancestry. Eastern coyotes either absorbed relict populations of wolves, or wolves occasionally mated with them as they crossed from the West into the East.
She makes a particularly large assumption here:
Red wolves once ranged across the southeastern and central United States, but sustained persecution, deforestation and habitat destruction beginning with European contact pushed their populations to decline drastically. Beleaguered red wolves began hybridizing with coyotes. Exactly when hybridization began is a hotly debated issue, though it appears hybridization signals the red wolf’s end, not it’s beginning. (Some scientists assert the species arose recently as a hybrid cross between gray wolves and coyotes, though genetic studies and fossils exist which contradict this.) The current line of thought is that coyotes and red wolves share a common lineage as canids that evolved solely in North America, with red wolves coming about independently of gray wolves but also closely related to eastern wolves as well.
The most comprehensive genetic study ever performed on wild animals says that every word of this paragraph is false.
The red wolf as we know it descends from animals that were caught in Texas and Louisiana in the 1970’s.
The animals were assumed to be a unique species, even though they were often seen running with coyotes.
The trappers caught both coyotes and “red wolves” in traps, but they took only the “red wolves” to start the breeding program.
This definition was based solely on phenotype.
There was no good genetic evidence to suggest that these animals were anything.
They just assumed that they were “red wolves” and sent them to breeding programs.
Genomic studies are very new.
They can resolve taxonomic relationships, and if the red wolf actually had been what it has been claimed, the genomic data would have found it to be genetically distinct. The same study found that the Mexican wolf was a very unique form of wolf. It critically endangered, and its reintroduction has been much more controversial than the supposed reintroduction of the red wolf.
If we actually want to save a unique American wolf, this is the animal we should be worrying about.
We shouldn’t be trying to save coyotes with some wolf ancestry.
If anything, North Carolinians should be allowed to hunt all coyotes in exactly the same manner.
The fictional red wolf doesn’t deserve any special protections.
And no amount of throwing fossils and narrow DNA studies at the facts will change them.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service and virtually all conservation organizations who continue to hold onto this fiction are harming their credibility.
Wolves do need protection in order for them to return to their former range.
Coyotes don’t.
See related posts:
I am curious as to why otherwise well-educated people seem to think that fossil evidence trumps DNA evidence.
or they think that very limited DNA studies somehow are better than genome-wide studies. Even if these studies have more samples, it’s just more samples of a very small part of the genome. The genome-wide study isn’t a huge sample either, but it is much more than any other studies that have ever been peformed on these canids.
There are people who used mtDNA studies with very small sample sizes to state unequivocally that certain dog breeds are NOT related.
Intellectually dishonest. Sometimes we find out things that we wish weren’t true. Denying them by cherry-picking evidence does not make them less true.
And I’ve been accused of cherry-picking studies because I think the genome-wide study is better than the ones they use. They are the cherry-pickers. They can’t see that one measure is significantly better than the others, and it’s even more so when you realize how inbred red wolves are.
The one mtDNA study that compared Xolos to Chinese Cresteds found no relation between the samples from both breeds, so therefore it PROVES Cresteds are a totally unrelated breed! =P
LOL I saw that one. It was a good study. But the interpretations were wrong.
Really what’s happening here is that you are agonising unnecessarily, in my opinion about the fact that some species naturally hybridise. In Britain our red deer for example have been hybridising with an introduced Japanes species, the sika, and the results are fertile and slightly smaller than red deer. Interestingly the hybrids seem to find niches which they may fill better than the pure red deer possibly because they fit into a tighter environment. Aesthetically though this may be a shame. because frankly the hybrid is not quite as magnificent as our pure ‘monarch of the glen’.
In Scotland we still have the Scottish wild cat. However there is some evidence of mixing with domestic cats(derived from African cats originally) albeit in those cases the wild cat seems to dominate. The most obvious difference in appearance is the fact that the wild cat is larger and has a blunt bushy end to its tail. Hybrids, like the pure wild cat, do not possess a gene for tameness, even when bred in captivy the hybrids have proved totally untameable.
Another animal which has hybridised here is the domestic ferret derived from the steppe polecat, I believe. Escaped ferrets have been mixing with wild Welsh polecats and the mixed population has been spreading back to eastern areas of England from where polecats were wiped out many decades previously. The crossbred animals often have less diistinct markings from the pure polecats, but not always. A friend in the village found a crossbred polecat/ ferret killed on a local road and had it stuffed and mounted in a glass case.
A species of duck introduced from north America, the ruddy shelduck I believe, increased here and some found there way to Spain where there is a closly related species which is rare (sorry I forget its name). The problem is that the females of the Spanish species seem to prefer the ruddy duck males and mate with them so it seems the natve Spanish breed is being absorbed. There are moves to wipe out the shelduck to which a lot of people are objecting since it would displace an aquired species in this country – complicated.
Further down the chain of life, Spanish bluebells are crossing with native English bluebells and this threatens our native species. Primroses are crossing with cowslips and cultivated primulas and creating new species that way.
I do understand though that you have a unique problem in America maybe with the coyote called “the coyote” being persecuted while another coyote called the red wolf is being ‘rescued’ from extinction even when it never really existed in the first place – arguably. One wishes them all well and safe havens from your bloody guns!
Also it seems there are rare instances of brown bear/ polar bear crosses which is truly mind boggling. Does that in the long term reflect climate change
in which case watch this space for more to come?
Actually loads of species are on the move globally it seems. Many problems ahead for those species trying to stay cool by moving up the mountain slopes. But they will have to grow wings for that strategy to succeed in the end.
I wouldn’t agonize at all if wolves weren’t endangered.
But this does make a difference.
Coyotes are not an endangered species at all. Wolves are endangered in most of the lower 48.
We also have on subspecies of wolf that went extinct in the wild and it’s not getting the attention it needs to come back fully through reintroduction, but we’re wasting time with this animal that is coyote in origin and ancestry.
This is not a trivial discussion.
I doesn’t bother me that some wolves have coyote in them or that some coyotes have wolf in them.
I’m just opposed to offering special protection and tax dollars to “save” some coyotes with wolf in them while other coyotes with wolf in them are fair game.
It’s simply not logical.
Let’s say that domestic cat genes swamped European wildcats to the point where only a small portion of their genetic make up was derived from European wildcats.
Would they be of conservation value?
I don’t think they would be. They’d be cats with European wildcat in them. There are likely some domestic cats with European wildcat genes.
It doesn’t make them European wildcats, does it?
When you say that wolves are endangered in the lower 48 states, don’t you mean they don’t actually exist – yet – in nearly all of those states? Latest report I’ve seen is that the return of wolves naturally via the cascade range have only in the case of one individual wolf reached northern California – that the first recorded family of wolves to return across the Canadian border were decimated almost immediately by some trigger happy ‘lil abners’ living just south of the border. They killed the female of the pack and we’ve been shown evidence of this atrocity on film. Just the male and two sons survived. However, further families of Canadian wolves have since made it we believe more successfully. Hopefully this is a new beginning for the grey wolf’s return to the USA, apart from the artificial reintroduction via Yellowstone, which is reportedly such a success so far, in its total outcome.. I just have doubts, don’t you, that they will be left alone sufficiently. I believe that some native Americans have applied to return to Yellowstone to love in harmony with nature as they did before. How likely is that to happen.
They actually can show up almost anywhere. One showed up in Missouri last year.
They don’t yet exist in all the states, but they will likely recolonize much of their former range if left alone.
The only difference is the Mexican wolf, which went extinct in the wild and must be reintroduced.
If Audubon recognized the RW, then there are probably some stuffed specimens in museum collections somewhere. Would be nice to see DNA studies to tell us just what they were.
But, anyway, you are saying that this 1/4 wolf is as good as extinct, right? I’m thinking of all those attempts to reconstruct extinct dog, cattle, and horse breeds. I’m inclined to think it can’t be done. At least not by means available to us at present. What do you think?
That’s exactly what I’m saying. A coyote isn’t a breed of wolf. It’s another species entirely. All the other animal examples you mention are within species. The ones that are majority wolf in ancestry are worth keeping around, because they are mostly wolf. I didn’t say that Algonquin Park wolves, which are in the 60 percent wolf to 40 percent coyote range aren’t worth keeping around, but if they had a lot more coyote in them, they aren’t of conservation value.
As I’ve said repeatedly, but for some reason you refuse to listen, there are already coyotes with almost the same amount of coyote ancestry in them as the “red wolf.” They don’t get special treatment as some rare species. They get their asses filled with lead.
Wayne already examined the stuffed specimens. At least one had wolf mtDNA, and the others had coyote.
OK, then. If the stuffed ones are primarily coyote then coyote it is. I was convinced that your Texas ones were coyote mixes, but I was wondering about the extinct ones to the east. Thanks.
For heavens sake – if there are, as retrieverman implies, 60/40 (or any other mix) wolf /coyotes which sustain themselves in the wild, then stop suggesting Americans should get racist about them As as I keep suggesting, either you help them where necessary or just leave them alone. Who are you to decide, what lives or dies is what I’m saying. It’s sheer human arrogance of the worst kind to interfere in a negative way against a naturally established animal population just because its DNA may not be perceived by some as being as “pure” as might be preferred. Echos of the third reich there. Hiopefully, though, these “mixed race” canids are a bit brighter than some of their detractors and will manage to avoid some of your more trigger happy citizens.
Please drop the Nazi references. I have Jewish readers who do not appreciate facile comparisons.
We’re talking about a species complex in which the two species have two distinct lineages but these get blurred at the margins.
I didn’t create something called the Endangered Species Act, but we have it.
One could classify a wolf with some coyote ancestry as a wolf, but how on earth do you classify a coyote with some wolf in it?
The law classifies those as coyotes– except in the case of the red wolf.
The only case red wolves had was being a unique species of wolf or being a subspecies of Canis lupus. They are neither. They are part of Canis latrans, which is not an endangered species.
God, you’re a moron.
So called red wolves have already been ‘interfered with.’ Trapping a bunch of animals and breeding them in captivity to keep them from become too ‘adulterated’ by coyote blood is INTERFERING.
Left alone, the ‘red wolf’ would have been absorbed into the local coyote population. Which is quite natural, seeing as how they were mostly coyote to start with. But we couldn’t have that because ‘red wolves’ are speshul. So they were INTERFERED with.
And it turned out to be a huge waste of money and resources.
To Kathy. Yes I think these well publicised attempts to “recreate” extinct species and breeds are a bit strange overall, but sometimes have some validity, maybe. For example, The European bison which lived in an extensive european war zone and became handy field rations, became extinct from its last Polish forest refuge. However it was discovered that some had survived in zoos. These were brought together back into the bial… forest and have survived to this day. Although related to the American bison the european one does look slightly different, sort of longer legged to my eye. It is a species evolved for woodland. However tis true that some mixing had gone on in captivity between the two bisons and this is a permanent legacy which has to be accepted. Anyway there are today a number of bison extant which to all appearances are our european race revived – and they are back in their native habitat which is wonderful.
Personally I think this is something to celebrate with reservations (no pun intended)
The narrow survival of the pere davids deer is a remarkable story which most of you know. The last Chinese home of this strange looking deer was the imperial hunting park near pekin (beijing). Then there was a civl uprising and soldiers ate all the remaining deer. End of story? not quite as a man called father david had managed to get a few of these deer into the west before the conflict had begun; some here in England. Then there was a magnificent rescue operation in which all of the surving pere davids were brought together in an English park and the rest is history, that is the breed still survives. I don’t know if there are any problems due a shrunken gene pool or not. Perhaps one of you could tell us? Just looking at the feet of these deer it is evident they evolved in marshy terrain. Also both sexes have antlers. You can see them any day of the week a few miles from here in the chiltern hills at Whipsnade.
Of course there are many other narrow escape stories to be told and sadly there are likely to be more in the future perhaps?
The best analogy I can think of with these red wolves is not Pere David’s deer or the kouprey.
The best analogy is English white park cattle.
English white park cattle, including the Chillingham cattle, were conserved for centuries on British estates and deer park under the delusion that the aboriginal British wild cattle were white.
Of course, all European cattle are derived from the aurochs. It was not white, and it was actually much larger than any living cattle breeds.
But that didn’t stop these estate owners from having their keepers maintain these “wild herds.”
The truth is these animals all derive from the cattle of commoners that were allowed to graze in the forests. When enclosure started and commoners were forced to leave the countryside, the cattle were left alone in the forests to breed. They were feral animals.
It was only with the rise of Hanoverian hunting parks that the owners of these estates began to manage them as a species deserving conservation. Just as the Fish and Wildlife Service traps out coyotes that might pollute the “red wolf” gene pool, any cattle that were of any color other than white were culled.
Just as the British gamekeepers were operating under the incorrect paradigm that these cattle were the aboriginal British wild cattle, the Fish and Wildlife Service is operating under the incorrect paradigm that these coyotes are the ancestral wolf or are some kind of unique species.
Just as a matter of correctness, there are actually at least two species of American Bison: “the plains bison (Bison bison bison), smaller in size and with a more rounded hump, and the wood bison (Bison bison athabascae) – the larger of the two and having a taller, square hump.” Most often the American Bison one sees is a cross of the two subspecies. (Similarly, there are a number of subspecies of Wapiti (aka American Elk)–some adapted to the open plains, others to forest.)
Estate owners liked to show off and the white cattle with black tips were and still are an impressive way of doing it. Like bison in America, there are small herds in various places which are nice to look at and these days attract the paying visitors. Of course American cattle are also historically derived from the aurochs, via European domestication. The longhorn came that way, to mention just one breed. Avoidance of inbreeding is a major preoccupation now, they say.
I can imagine the dilemma for a American hunter out on a misty morning peering through the trees at some living canine form. “Is it a protected tawny job which I should let go back alive to feed its cubs according to the law, or a grey guy which I can legally shoot, then grin to camera before taking its pathetic corpse back home to show the folks.”… “Well I haven’t come out here not to kill, so BANG! If I’m wrong, just another example of American ‘friendly fire’.”
There were 8 pups born to rare Mexican Wolves in a preserve close by. There were only 50 known. ot sure you saw this story.
http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Endangered-wolves-at-NY-preserve-produce-8-pups-3540301.php
Here is a btter link – with video
http://www.nywolf.org/
they also have a pair of Red Wolves………
Great post from Chris Miele. However, did you all read down to the bottom of the newspaper article to discover that some “red wolves” are included in this wolf breeding programme. I wonder if someone has already mentioned the possible invalidity of their inclusion…
The study that showed red wolves were not what they’ve been claimed has not worked its way into officialdom, though it is scientifically valid and paradigm shattering. The Fish and Wildlife Service is a government agency that is not at all open to learning that one of its most successful programs is a load of crap.
Government moves at a glacial pace, anyways, even when they *don’t* have to admit they’ve goofed.
I have followed this issue since I was in high school. I was a staunch pro-species, red wolf supporter. In fact, it was one of my favorite animals. The relatively recent genetic analysis is seems to have revealed the truth. This will not be accepted, however, until someone ELSE does a similar study, in my humble opinion.
The thing is this study is hard to replicate right now. Really, only UCLA has the technology to do this particular sort of analysis.
It may be a while.
There are many credible authors on that study from across the US, though: Roland Kays from the New York State Museum is of particular importance.
I stand corrected. He’s now in North Carolina: http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2012/01/17/next-stop-for-roland-kays-raleigh
Undoubtedly, the take home message from all of this is that human meddling with nature always leads to problems. I fear the eastern coyote and the Great Lakes wolves. Certainly, they help fill a niche humans caused to be vacant, but they present an opportunity to cause a homogenization of North American Canis. There WERE natural barriers in place that we destroyed, as can be seen in the West, where coyotes are limited by grey wolves. Although some gene flow between closely related species is normal, it is usually quite rare. When you deprive a species of a healthy population size, you encourage hybridization, with animals simply moving to the next most similar animal to breed. The fools in Idaho may cause a similar problem by ignorantly hunting wolves to the lowest acceptable number by law. If these wolves and their expanding offspring, don’t find mates of their own kind, they may start to breed with coyotes, especially from a female coyote-to-male wolf prospective. Western North America NEEDS the two separate niches. The Eastern coyote-type is not large enough to handle big game, like bison, adult elk, and adult moose. If such an animal spreads out southwest, before wolves can be reintroduced successfully, it will destroy that possibility.
In my opinion, nature needs to be brought back to how it was pre-colonialization by Western Europeans.
We’re going to have a hard time doing that. 300 million Americans living here means that we’re never going to see it again.
We can have vestiges and preserves. We’ve done a better job of it than the Europeans– not as well as the Russians have, with their zapovednik system.
But we still have most of our larger fauna. Wolves are coming back. Black bears are growing in numbers.
People are going to have conflicts with these animals, and in some cases, doing some limited controls might be good for the ecosystem.
Well done again Chris Miele, now you have got me very angry – not with you of course, youre brilliant, but about that wolf extermination agency. Please everyone viewing this site, click on to the sites linked to from Chris’s post here. And make representations to politicians and anyone who can have influence. Not easy from here in England but we are one planet after all.
I recall seeing film years ago of wolves being shot from helicopters. You have some evil people over there sorry to reflect.
Well, that was your fellow high Tory of the American sort, none other than Sarah Palin, who came up with that policy.
There is some science behind why they implemented the controls, but it’s quite controversial even in the wildlife management literature.
Alaskans actually don’t support the policy, and they vote it down in referenda whenever the state’s wildlife agency re-implements it.
I have been doing so for quite some time now–not that its made a whit of difference. I’ve also been trying to fight the killing of wolves in Alberta, Canada where habitat loss caused by the oil industry (can you spell tar sands) has reduced the local caribou herd. Seems that now they want to shoot off wolves to give the herd relief from predation. Talk about bass-ackward!
A couple of sites addressing this issue can be found at: http://www.desmogblog.com/unethical-oil-why-canada-killing-wolves-and-muzzling-scientists-protect-tar-sands-interests
and
http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/Media-Center/News-by-Topic/Wildlife/2012/02-06-12-Tar-Sands-Development-to-Lead-to-Poisoning-of-Wolves.aspx
Dave, from Prick-eared and I have had some fun rants about this “conservation policy.”
Blaming the wolves when they should be blaming the oil industry is old hat for oily politicians like Harper and Canada’s Conservative Party.
If humans were out of the picture (say if Aliens killed us all) what would the situation be like for North American canids in a couple of hundred years time? Would wolves spread through all of North America again? Where would coyotes be found? Would either species absorb the remaining domesticated dogs?
If humans were to disappear has been made into several documentaries. When it comes to dogs, the larger dogs would eat the little ones, and then they would merge with the wolves as they came back.
So would wolves occupy all of North America? And what would happen to the coyotes?
Probably some limited interbreeding, but they’d wind up playing second fiddle, like they do now in the Yellowstone region.
Oh massugu now you really have depressed me, it’s quarter to eleven here in England and I am going to find getting to sleep difficult. Now I understand why the wolves have been making a break for it acroos the Cascades – they are refugees from the wolf killing politicians back home in Canada. Will they find much better where theyre headed, maybe not. They are headed for the country which voted evil Bush junior into power. Sarah was at least an irrelevance relatively speaking. Okay I know you could talk about our Dave if you even knew who he was.
Peter, when you’re criticizing US policies and politicians you’ll seldom get an argument from me. Just remember that just because one is an American (or Canadian, Brit, Israeli, etc.), that doesn’t mean (s)he is representative of or responsible for his/her country’s policies. One can vote, one can choose not to contribute money, one can blog, one can sign petitions and/or contact one’s political representatives, and one can march (if one doesn’t mind being roughed up by the authorities) but one can not change national policy–that takes more firepower than the average individual has. I don’t hold you responsible for the the R. Murdoch scandal, BP (or for that matter, the War of 1812 (LOL)), so please don’t hold me responsible for the Iraq War, the NDAA or killer drones.
[…] Some more red wolf nonsense […]
[…] Some more red wolf nonsense […]
I was going to agree with you in just about everything, massugu, until you mentioned the dreadful M word. Murdoch you will find is a citizen of the United States – and you are welcome to him; maybe he could be water boarded or something, just choose any handy torture procedure in the goverment games cupboard.
Nobody seems to want him. The truth is that like many of today’s big biz nabobs, he is loyal only to himself and to money. He is a citizen of nowhere.
I keep mistyping that – I mean government games cupboard.
Was it on another thread the subject came up about distant genetic relationships still not precluding the ability of two species to interbreed even if fertile young do not result. Looking out of the window just now a pair of our European goldfinches came into view clinging to a bamboo cane in the garden and reminding me that they too produce young across species barriers.There are only a few really colourful species native here and this is one of them – all in golden yellow, white and red. Anyway it was discovered long ago that the goldfinch will mate with canaries in captivity. However the chicks are lovely but infertile and are called ‘mules’and their song is a strange combination of the parent species It was also discovered that almost the whole of the carduelis genus of finches were able to reproduce with canaries in this way and also produce infertile young. Curiously though one such species resident in South America, the red hooded siskin actually produces fertile young with canaries
And as we know, zebras can cross with horses, donkeys also with horses and the results are nearly always infertile young, but not always.
We know that a lion can be crossed with among others the jaguar. This is fascinating because these two species parted ways millions of years ago one ending up in Africa the other in South America. Presumably they were sharing the same jungle as continental plates drifted apart and left the two divided. Or did one of them walk to South America across the bering bridge? I’m sure there is a definitive answer to that? Incidentally the sabre tooths were over the bridge where they were exterminated by modern man according to a source.
This is why I and maybe others swallowed for a while Retrieverman’s late April; fools joke, because the two species of squirrel although from different parts of the northern hemisphere are considered members of the same genus. And now living in the same country but one rare to the Scottish area, it was conceivable (no pun intended) for those two to interbreed, Too late for me to now cleverly remark that greys have some red in their coats and reds have some grey anyway.
As far as melanistic squirrels are concerned we do have black Eastern Greys living here in England and curiously increasing in certain places (since black does not seem to be discrimiated against so much in Nature as we know) However so far the melanistic greys are not fully black but sort of greyish tinged black, maybe charcoal. Is that what the melanistic eastern greys are like back home in America, does anyone know?
Because a third of the grays here are melanistic, I can say with authority that some are full black, some are charcoal, and some (very rare ones) are black with red tails. They are not fox squirrels, which have black bands in their tail hairs, when they are this color.
Let me show you a photo:
There are several different morphs of Eastern gray, and there are several different morphs of fox squirrel, which can be distinguished from the grays by their much larger size and more oblong heads.
Loved that bicolour red and black eastern grey. Now you are sure you didn’t fake it this time, I’m really suspicious of you now Retrieverperson?
You are a very intelligent person!