Rock Squirrel

About the Rock Squirrel

The Rock Squirrel is the big grizzled ground squirrel of Texas canyon country - dark salt-and-pepper gray with a long, almost tree-squirrel bushy tail, and nearly twice the bulk of the fox squirrels most Texans know from town. The name is the habitat: boulder piles, cliff faces, canyon rims, and the rock riprap of dams and bridges.

It behaves like a squirrel that never fully chose between ground and tree - denning in burrows dug among rocks, yet climbing boulders, walls, and even junipers and oaks with ease to reach acorns and fruit. Seeds, mesquite beans, cactus fruit, insects, and the occasional egg round out an opportunist's diet, and food is carried home in cheek pouches.

Rock Squirrels are social sentinels: colonies post lookouts on high points, and a sharp, carrying whistle sends everyone to cover - a sound canyon hikers hear constantly, often without spotting the whistler. In the hottest parts of summer they may retreat underground for stretches, and in colder regions they den up for much of the winter.

In Texas the species ranges across the central and western half of the state - Hill Country river canyons, the Trans-Pecos, and Panhandle breaks - and is a familiar sight scampering over the limestone at the Highland Lakes, where it is often the mammal photographed while waiting for canyon birds.