The fox squirrel is a lighter presence in Tennessee’s record than its gray cousin, 345 sightings that lean west, toward Lake, Obion, and Dyer counties around Reelfoot Lake, with a second knot in Sullivan and Hawkins counties in the far east.
The big squirrel of the open woods
The fox squirrel is the largest tree squirrel in North America, a heavyset, long-tailed animal that prefers open woodland, forest edges, and scattered big nut trees over closed-canopy forest. It spends more time on the ground than a gray squirrel, traveling between trees on foot and foraging for acorns, hickory nuts, and pine seeds, habits that make it look deliberate rather than squirrel-quick. It nests in tree cavities or in stick-and-leaf dreys set in the open crowns of mature trees.
A spring face that shows up young
Fox squirrels do not hibernate, and Tennessee records run through every month. They raise one litter in late winter and often a second in late summer, and the state’s sightings crest in April and May, when that first crop of young squirrels is out feeding in the open. Numbers dip in high summer and recover in autumn as the later litter weans.
Status in Tennessee
NatureServe ranks the fox squirrel S5, Secure, in Tennessee. The species is native to its Tennessee range, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
