Esquilo-cinzento-oriental
Sciurus carolinensis
Mamífero
Esquilo-arborícola das florestas de folhosas do leste da América do Norte que se alimenta das nozes e dos frutos de carvalhos, carias (Carya), nogueiras, nogueiras-pecã e faias. Ele dispersa e armazena o excedente de nozes em pequenos esconderijos de uma única semente a cada outono e os recupera pela memória e pelo olfato; a fração considerável nunca recuperada germina, fazendo do esquilo um disseminador eficaz que auxilia a regeneração de carvalhos e de outras árvores de sementes pesadas. Ele se aninha em ocos de árvores e constrói ninhos de folhas e galhos no alto do dossel, de modo que as árvores maduras produtoras de nozes fornecem tanto seu alimento quanto seu abrigo.
Conservação
Lista Vermelha da IUCN: Pouco Preocupante; abundante e seguro em toda a sua área de ocorrência nativa e sem listagem federal. As populações nativas são estáveis; a espécie é, no entanto, invasora que desloca os esquilos-vermelhos nativos onde foi introduzida na Europa.
Plano para esta espécie
Conjunto de plantas adequado para Chicago, IL: primeiro plantas hospedeiras e especialistas, depois plantas de néctar, frutos, sementes, folhagem e abrigo que ainda se encaixam na leitura climática atual e de meados do século.
0 relações essenciais / 6 plantas de apoio
Relações hospedeiro/especialista: 0
Relações forrageio/polinização: 6
Relações de abrigo: 0
Papéis de relação: 2
Corniso-pagode
De apoio / Plantas frutíferas
The Wildflower Center names squirrels among the mammals taking the fruit. Wikipedia adds black bear, which has no entry in this catalog. Squirrels are a mixed blessing on this plant - they take fruit before it is fully ripe and they strip bark on young stems, and bark wounds are an entry point for the borers and cankers that cut this plant short.
Viburno-de-folha-de-bordo
De apoio / Plantas frutíferas
Wikipedia records the berries being eaten by skunks, rabbits, deer, eastern chipmunks, white-footed mice and deer mice - a small-mammal list rather than a bird list, which fits a shrub that fruits within reach of the ground. None of those species has an entry in this wildlife catalog, so they are named here in prose and the relationship is wired to the gray squirrel as the catalogued small mammal with the same habits, marked plausible because no cited source names it.
Viburno-nannyberry
De apoio / Plantas frutíferas
The Wildflower Center explicitly includes mammals among the winter fruit eaters without naming them. Grey squirrels are the most likely mammal to work a fruiting shrub of this height across the eastern part of the range, so the entry sits at plausible pending a species-level source.
Corniso-sedoso
De apoio / Plantas frutíferas
Wikipedia names rodents among the animals that eat the fruit and disperse the seed. Grey squirrels are the likely eastern candidate in a garden setting, but the source says rodents rather than naming a species, so this is recorded as plausible.
Castanheira-americana
De apoio / Plantas com sementes
Chestnut mast was historically a dietary staple for the eastern gray squirrel, which both ate and cached the nuts; the loss of the American chestnut removed one of the most reliable, abundant fall mast crops of the eastern forest. On the rare bearing tree today squirrels still take the nuts readily.
Carvalho-negro
De apoio / Plantas com sementes
Squirrels take and cache the acorns heavily. Black oak bears well only every 2 to 3 years, so a mast year is a local event that drives squirrel numbers into the following season.
Plantas no catálogo
Plantas frutíferas · 4
Wikipedia records the berries being eaten by skunks, rabbits, deer, eastern chipmunks, white-footed mice and deer mice - a small-mammal list rather than a bird list, which fits a shrub that fruits within reach of the ground. None of those species has an entry in this wildlife catalog, so they are named here in prose and the relationship is wired to the gray squirrel as the catalogued small mammal with the same habits, marked plausible because no cited source names it.
The Wildflower Center explicitly includes mammals among the winter fruit eaters without naming them. Grey squirrels are the most likely mammal to work a fruiting shrub of this height across the eastern part of the range, so the entry sits at plausible pending a species-level source.
The Wildflower Center names squirrels among the mammals taking the fruit. Wikipedia adds black bear, which has no entry in this catalog. Squirrels are a mixed blessing on this plant - they take fruit before it is fully ripe and they strip bark on young stems, and bark wounds are an entry point for the borers and cankers that cut this plant short.
Wikipedia names rodents among the animals that eat the fruit and disperse the seed. Grey squirrels are the likely eastern candidate in a garden setting, but the source says rodents rather than naming a species, so this is recorded as plausible.
Plantas com sementes · 29
Chestnut mast was historically a dietary staple for the eastern gray squirrel, which both ate and cached the nuts; the loss of the American chestnut removed one of the most reliable, abundant fall mast crops of the eastern forest. On the rare bearing tree today squirrels still take the nuts readily.
Squirrels take and cache the acorns heavily. Black oak bears well only every 2 to 3 years, so a mast year is a local event that drives squirrel numbers into the following season.
Squirrels take the samaras heavily. Because the seed persists on female trees well into winter rather than dropping in autumn, boxelder fills a genuine gap in the seed calendar when most other sources are exhausted.
The large acorns are prime squirrel food, but white-oak acorns germinate immediately on falling, so squirrels tend to eat them rather than cache them - which makes chestnut oak a food source more than a dispersal partnership.
Squirrels take the small sweet acorns readily. As with other white-group oaks the acorns germinate on falling, so they are eaten rather than cached, and dispersal depends more on jays carrying them off before they sprout.
Squirrels crack and eat the ripening nuts (NC State); the grey squirrel is now the dominant nut predator of hazel across much of Britain. Dormice, wood mice, nuthatches, tits and jays take the nuts too (Woodland Trust).
Squirrels readily gnaw open and cache fallen walnuts where the tree is planted; English walnut is a Eurasian species rather than part of the native eastern food web, so this is a plausible foraging tie on a cultivated tree rather than a documented native-fauna relationship.
Squirrels cut and strip green cones for the seed, leaving the shredded cone cores that litter the ground under a productive tree.
The large, nutritious pine seeds from the fall cones are eaten by squirrels and other small mammals, which cache and disperse them.
Squirrels and other mammals gnaw open and cache the hard pignuts, dispersing the seed in the process.
The eastern gray squirrel both eats and caches acorns; the small, abundant pin oak acorns are a reliable fall-and-winter food and the squirrel's caching helps disperse the species.
Squirrels take the small sweet acorns readily. As with the other white oaks the acorns germinate on falling and so are eaten rather than stored, which makes the tree a food source more than a caching partner.
NC State Extension and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center both record squirrels eating the seeds; the buckeyes are toxic to people and most wildlife, but gray squirrels are documented consumers of them.
Scarlet oak acorns are gathered and cached by eastern gray squirrels and other small mammals; the 2-year acorn cycle drives mast years that feed the wider food web.
Squirrels harvest and cache the acorns; as with all oaks, this both feeds the squirrels and disperses the acorns that escape being eaten.
The samaras are unusually large and ripen in late spring rather than autumn, filling a genuine gap in the seed calendar; squirrels take them heavily, as do finches and grosbeaks.
Distribuição
Nativo do leste dos Estados Unidos até logo a oeste do rio Mississippi e ao norte até o sudeste do Canadá.
Fontes e citações
Citar esta página
Use esta citação para o registro de fauna do Plotwright. Use os cartões de fontes abaixo para explorar as referências que informaram sua taxonomia, distribuição, conservação, plantas hospedeiras, forrageamento e habitat.
Plotwright. (n.d.). Esquilo-cinzento-oriental (Sciurus carolinensis). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/wildlife/eastern-gray-squirrel
Fontes usadas neste registro
Este registro foi compilado a partir das fontes abaixo.
Animal Diversity Web: Sciurus carolinensis
Natural-history account for identity, range, tree-den and leaf-drey nesting, mast/fruit/fungi diet, scatter-hoarding, seed dispersal, and Least Concern status.
GBIF: Sciurus carolinensis
GBIF backbone record confirming the accepted species name and aggregating occurrence data across its native and introduced range.
iNaturalist: Eastern Gray Squirrel
iNaturalist taxon page corroborating the accepted name and mapping verified community observations across its range.
Eastern gray squirrel - Wikipedia
Encyclopedia overview covering identification, native and introduced range, and scatter-hoarding and reproductive life-cycle details.