YUCATAN GRAY SQUIRREL

Photographed near Yokdzonot, Yucatán

An awful scolding arose back where I'd just come from, sounding like an upset squirrel. People here had told me that we have squirrels but to me this didn't look much like squirrel territory and I wasn't sure whether to believe them. We have few trees of any reputable size here, except for a few next to buildings and wells.

I sneak back to where the fussing comes from, see some shaking weeds, and my binoculars reveal the smallest, palest gray squirrel I've ever seen. He's just sitting among head-high weeds in an abandoned citrus orchard with patches of 20-ft-high, acacia- like Guaje trees (Leucaena glauca) -- not much of a forest. I don't see much more of the squirrel other than its tiny size and its very pale grayness. However, its chattering would be at home in any oak- hickory forest up north.

Back at the hacienda I dig out Vladimir's FAUNA SILVESTRE DE MEXICO by A. Starker Leopold and learn that I've spotted a Yucatan Gray Squirrel, SCIURUS YUCATANENSIS, a species endemic to the Yucatan Peninsula. Leopold says that Mexico has ten species of gray squirrel.

I just wonder what squirrels eat here. Having seen gray squirrels in the US Southeast eat mushrooms and bird eggs, I wouldn't put it past the local species to eat oranges, cactus fruit and seeds from the Guaje trees, which right now are absolutely heavy with legumes looking like flattened string beans.