Fox squirrels account for 223 North Dakota records, and the map follows the wooded corridors of the Missouri River country, led by Burleigh and Stark counties with a long tail through the eastern and southern towns. This is the most widespread of the state’s tree squirrels, at home wherever big deciduous trees stand close together.
The big squirrel of open woods
The fox squirrel is the largest tree squirrel in North America, heavy-bodied with a rusty belly and a grizzled, orange-washed tail. It favors more open woods than the gray squirrel, spending long stretches on the ground beneath cottonwoods, oaks, and ash along river bottoms, shelterbelts, and farmsteads, which suits North Dakota’s scattered tree cover well. Cross Ranch State Park and the parks and management lands along the Missouri mark the riparian core of its range here, and it is often the squirrel seen crossing mowed ground between widely spaced trees in town parks.
Spring and fall foraging pulses
Fox squirrels stay active through the winter, sheltering in leaf nests and tree cavities, and records appear in every month. Two pulses stand out, one in May when animals feed heavily on buds, flowers, and early seeds, and a second in September when they cut and bury the year’s nut crop and young squirrels disperse to new ground.
Status in North Dakota
NatureServe has not assigned the fox squirrel a state rank in North Dakota, listing it as SNR, Unranked. The species is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
