The Abert’s squirrel is one of Colorado’s most distinctive tree squirrels. Open occurrence databases hold 1,209 records for it in Colorado, most of them iNaturalist photos concentrated in the ponderosa pine foothills of the northern Front Range.
A squirrel bound to the ponderosa pine
Abert’s squirrel lives almost entirely inside one forest type. It feeds on ponderosa seeds and cones, strips the sugary inner bark from young twigs in winter, and digs out the pine’s root fungi, so its range tracks the tree with unusual fidelity. Records cluster in Boulder, Larimer, and Jefferson counties, where ponderosa cloaks the foothills. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument and the San Isabel National Forest hold some of the densest clusters.
Active in every season
Unlike the marmots and pikas that share Colorado’s mountains, this squirrel does not hibernate, so its sightings spread across all twelve months rather than collapsing to a summer window. Reports ease off in the deep-snow months only because fewer people are out watching, not because the animal has gone anywhere. Look for a large gray squirrel with a white belly, a pale-edged tail, and the long dark ear tufts that give it away at a glance.
The black squirrels of the Front Range
Coloradans often meet an all-black version of this squirrel. Melanistic individuals are common here, especially in the northern foothills, so a coal-black squirrel with tufted ears loping along a ponderosa branch is almost certainly a native Abert’s rather than an escaped exotic.
Common questions
Where is the best place to see one? Ponderosa pine country in the Front Range foothills. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument and the wooded reaches of the San Isabel and San Juan national forests are reliable.
Is the all-black squirrel a different species? No. It is a color phase of the Abert’s squirrel, unusually common in Colorado, and it still carries the same long ear tufts and heavy build.
Full species profile
