Top is a cat squirrel, bottom is a true gray squirrel.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. My understanding was that a cat squirrel and grey squirrel were the same. Thanks again

I thought the same thing too. But, I hunted with some buddies a couple years ago on Hog Island in the Spillway and killed one just like that and when I asked the same question, one of the older guys there told me that.
Gotta admit, squirrel hunting in the Spillway is incredible! Plenty squirrels and more fox and black squirrels than cat squirels.

The squirrel hunting is awesome. There are tons of fox squirrels and black squirrels. My buddy killed 4 black squirrels on his first hunt and 3 on his second and most of our limits consist of fox and black squirrels.

that is cool never saw that before!

Hate to bust ya'lls bubble, but cat squirrel and Gray Squirrel are the same thing. Differences in opinion have led to certain gray squirrels being called 'cat squirrels', because of their size or what ever other reason, but there is no such species. The fox squirrel and gray squirrel are the only tree squirrels that occur in Louisiana. The only other species that occurs here is the southern flying squirrel. The squirrel in this picture is more than likely a hybrid between a gray and fox squirrel.

J - Give me a minute and I will find it but you are part right and part wrong. There ARE 2 species of squirrels, fox and cat, but there are also 3 sub-species of fox and 2 sub-species of cat. That is straight form LW&F website. They do not ID the sub-species though.

Unless something changed since 1973 when I took Wildlife Biology and Field Zoology at SLU, fox and cat squirrels do not interbreed. I asked the question and the Prof answered it . I asked the question concerning Bachman's Fox squirrel in the Florida Parishes and Gray-cat squirrels .

turkey - The Bachman is a blaze-face right? Isn't a black squirrel called a Delta or something? I can't find anything that lists the sub-species of cat squirrel, just that there are 2. What is the 3rd species of fox? Red squirrel?

There is no such thing as a cat squirrel. That just a term that some coon@ss came up with just like there's no such thing as a dogris...it's a Scaup. There are only Gray squirrels and Fox squirrels in Louisiana. A fox squirrel can give birth to a normal fox squirrel, a black squirrel and a Bachman's (blaze face) all in the same litter because they are all the same species. Just like there are black, yellow and chocolate labs. Gray squirrels can also be black.

We only have Bachman's away from the Mississippi River. In St Helena , East Feliciana , Tangipahoa W,asington, St Tammany and Livingston Parishes where I have spent my misguided life of 60 years , I have never seen a black fox squirrel. West of The Mississippi I have seen black ones.

I'm going to throw another wrench in the gears. There are in fact subspecies of fox squirrels in LA. There is the Delta Fox which many are familiar with that are red and have a black phase. These can in fact come from the same litter. The Bachman's fox is a completely different squirrel. They have the white face and white tips on their feet and tail. They can have a black phase that keeps the white tips but are pretty rare. Then there's the one you killed. We've always called them a red squirrel. They get bigger than grey squirrels but not as large as the Delta Fox and nowhere near as big as the Bachman's or Bach, sometimes called Box, squirrel. It is not a crossbreed, they are a different squirrel. City park has had them for as long as I can remember if you know where to look.

I stand semi-corrected. While my last post was obviously not totally incorrect, there are subspecies that I failed to think of, much less mention. I'm not a squirrelologist by any means. But I still stand by everything I said in my last post--no such thing as a cat squirrel (simply a gray squirrel by a different name)-- except that it is a hybrid, because clearly, it may not be.

Although I must disagree with the statement that the 2 species do not interbreed. There is no way possible to prove that, and I'm sure in some places it is very possible that they do interbreed.

thats looke to me like Fox&Cat Squirrel cross bred I've seen before local place i grew hunting in Hard Wood