Northern and southern flying squirrels are interfertile species. I did not know this.
And just as the coyote is a major threat to the red wolf through hybridization, the southern flying squirrel is a threat to the northern species.
West Virginia has a unique subspecies of the northern flying squirrel called the Virginia northern flying squirrel. It is native to the forests of the High Alleghenies.
Now, when I was growing up, I once shared my bedroom with a small colony of southern flying squirrels. To save them, I made the claim that these were the endangered Virginia northern flying squirrels.
Of course, they weren’t.
