Eastern gray squirrel
Amazing fact
Eastern gray squirrels send signals to other squirrels by flicking their tails.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Eastern gray squirrels send signals to other squirrels by flicking their tails.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Eastern gray squirrel
- Scientific name
- Sciurus carolinensis
- Japanese name
- トウブハイイロリス
- Group
- Land mammals
- Class
- Mammalia
- Order
- Rodentia
- Family
- Sciuridae
- Genus
- Sciurus
A squirrel of the forests of the eastern United States and Canada. It is especially common in forests rich in oaks and walnuts.
Its back is gray, sometimes with cinnamon tones. In the northern part of its range, black individuals are common.
It buries food in many scattered spots for winter, and finds these hiding places again by memory and smell.
How the Eastern gray squirrel lives
From spring to autumn, they are most active in the morning and late afternoon, avoiding midday heat. Nuts, flowers, and buds are major foods. They use tree cavities and nests of leaves and twigs in branch forks. Pregnant females nest alone.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Size
- Total length: 380–525 mm
- Weight
- 338–750 g
- Lifespan
- up to 12.5 years in the wild
- Active
- By day (diurnal)
- Diet
- Mostly nuts, flowers and buds
- Range
- Eastern United States to Canada
Where the Eastern gray squirrel has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- トウブハイイロリス
- 简体中文
- 灰松鼠
- 繁體中文
- 灰松鼠
- 한국어
- 동부회색다람쥐
- Français
- Écureuil gris
- Deutsch
- Östliches Grauhörnchen
- Português (Brasil)
- Esquilo-cinzento
- Italiano
- Scoiattolo grigio nordamericano
- العربية
- سنجاب رمادي شرقي
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Tupai abu-abu timur
- Tiếng Việt
- Sóc xám phương Đông
- Русский
- Каролинская белка
- Türkçe
- Boz sincap
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Sciurus carolinensisChecked: 2026-11-04
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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