It’s a rare phenomenon 😱
People in Iowa have recently been spotting squirrels with an unusual look: ordinary bodies paired with bright white tails. The unusual contrast has caught attention across the state, with many wondering what causes the odd coloring and whether it changes anything for the animals themselves.
Jim Coffey, a forest wildlife biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says the answer is genetic. These squirrels are not a separate species. They are regular squirrels that happen to carry a rare recessive trait that shows up in the fur on their tails.
According to Coffey, this coloring appears when the right combination of genes is passed down from one parent squirrel to another. In other words, the white-tailed look is simply a rare variation that occasionally surfaces in the population.
Most of the sightings have come from towns and cities rather than dense natural habitats, and Coffey says that makes sense. In places with fewer predators, squirrels with unusual coloring have a better chance of surviving. In the wild, camouflage is important, so squirrels that blend in with bark, leaves, and brush are less likely to be noticed. In urban areas, that pressure is reduced, allowing unusual traits to remain visible.
Coffey also suggested that the white tail could possibly offer a small advantage. When squirrels feel threatened, they often flick their tails to distract a predator. A bright white tail is especially noticeable, which may help pull attention away from the animal’s body and improve its chances of escape.
Because this trait is inherited, it can continue to appear in family lines and spread across a region over time. That may help explain why so many of these white-tailed squirrels seem to be concentrated in Iowa and other parts of the Midwest.
After more than 30 years with the Department of Natural Resources, Coffey said he was not entirely surprised by the discovery, but he was happy to see the attention it brought to squirrels. In his view, there is much more going on in squirrel life than people often realize, from social behavior to genetics and individual personality.
For anyone living in the Midwest, a glimpse of a squirrel with a bright white tail may be a rare and memorable sight.