ST. PETERS, Mo. — Spring has sprung for squirrels across the St. Louis region, and some rare members of the tree rodent family are being spotted around the area.
Tom, a 5 On Your Side viewer from St. Peters, recently sent meteorologist Tracy Hinson pictures of a snow-white squirrel frolicking in his yard on Saturday. The unique occurrence is more common than many may think in Missouri.
"Missouri’s two most common tree squirrel species — the eastern gray squirrel and the eastern fox squirrel — can have quite a lot of color variation from dark to light," according to the Missouri Department of Conservation.
The first thought some may have when seeing a white squirrel is to label it as an "albino," but that's not always the case, conservationists said. If the squirrel has white fur but lacks pink eyes, it could be a different condition entirely.
"Leucism is a condition in which there is partial loss of pigmentation in an animal resulting in white, pale or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, feathers, scales or cuticle, but not the eyes," MDC said on its website. "Unlike albinism, it is caused by a reduction in multiple types of pigment, not just melanin."
Albino squirrels have been spotted numerous times throughout Missouri, and there are even entire albino squirrel colonies, the most famous of which is in Marionville.
"Visitors come to Marionville in hopes of catching a glimpse of our white squirrels," the community's website said. "The totally white creatures roam the yards and are protected by city law. The squirrels have been here, reportedly since the late 1800s."
Olney, Illinois is another St. Louis-area community famous for its white squirrels, but there are two competing theories about where they came from. Read the theories here.
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