Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuor in Gondolin
I believe Darwin (or someone else) cited squirrels turning black in 19th Century Britain as an indication of evolution, the darker color being for blending in in a sooty industrial landscape. Perhaps Tolkien knew of this and put it in (as a slap at industrialization?).
|
I’ve read this idea before, but it seems to me unlikely that Tolkien would suppose that the the dark fauna of an enormous, virgin woodland would come from industrialization in a place where there was none.
I agree with Galadriel55:
The scientific explanation for the colour could be the lack of sunlight under the Mirkwood trees and the theory of evolution.
The black squirrels I am familiar with are a variant of the North American Eastern Grey Squirrels. Grey-colored squirrels are also seen in Toronto, but are much less common than the black-colored variety. The Eastern Grey Squirrel was introduced into Britain from North America in the 1870s and a black variant is now putting the survival of the common British red squirrel in jeopardy. See
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ntroduced.html .
For information on the black variety, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_squirrel :
The black subgroup seems to have been dominant throughout North America prior to the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, since their dark colour helped them hide in virgin forests which tended to be very dense and shaded. As time passed, hunting and deforestation led to biological advantages for grey coloured individuals. Today, the black subgroup is particularly abundant in the northern part of the Eastern Grey Squirrel's range. This is likely due to the significantly increased cold tolerance of black squirrels which lose less heat than greys. Black squirrels also enjoy concealment advantages in denser northern forests.
In North America the red squirrel is a separate species living mainly on the cone seeds of conifers and is predominant in areas where conifers are dominant. They are not so omnivorous as the British red squirrel.
Black squirrels as a mutation of the imported grey squirrels were first spotted in Britain in 1912. Tolkien would likely have been aware of them only as a rare variety of squirrel.