[Reprinted from original]
Bigfoot is apparently not the craziest thing you might find in North Carolina’s backwoods.
On Wednesday, state biologists revealed a disconcerting fact about those infamous 2-foot-tall fox squirrels known to live in the eastern part of the state.
“Just another boring rodent, right?” said a post on the NC Candid Critters Facebook page. “Not unless you think that glowing pink is boring!”
“Many fox squirrels have a condition...that causes their bones and sometimes even their fur to glow pink under ultraviolet light.”
That condition is called congenital erythropoietic porphyria and the Candid Critters page posted examples showing one squirrel’s belly glowing pink and the skull of another showing up pink under ultraviolet light.
Details of the unnerving condition were released on a Facebook site devoted to a camera trap initiative spread across the state’s heavily forested areas.
The NC Candid Critters program made national news last year by posting camera trap photos of the seldom photographed fox squirrels, which the N.C. Wildlife Commission says can grow 26 inches tall and weigh 6 pounds.
The program has also become known for posting surprising images of invasive species, and a few creatures caught in the dark that couldn’t easily be identified.
Fox squirrels among among the state’s lesser known rodents and are rarely seen by people, according to NCWildlife.org">NCWildlife.org. They live in dense pine-oak forests near the coast and are a popular quarry among some hunters, says NCWildlife.org">NCWildlife.org.
Candid Critters’ mission is to uncover little known details about the distribution of mammals in the state. Partners include NC State University, NC Museum of Natural Sciences, NC Wildlife Resources Commission.
Facebook post
Large pictures from the post above, as images you can easily download:
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Image 2
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Image 3
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