Join the SquirrelMapper project and contribute to an important scientific discovery about evolution in action in our own backyards. Here are three ways you can participate to help advance this research:
Contribute observations of squirrels to the SquirrelMapper project on iNaturalist
Over 200,000 photographs of squirrels have been submitted so far. When you submit an observation, the community of citizen scientists at iNaturalist confirms its identification. Once an observation is confirmed to be an eastern gray squirrel (a research grade observation), we import the photo to our project site at Zooniverse for you to classify by its coat color.
Classify the coat color of squirrels at the SquirrelMapper project on Zooniverse
The coat color of each squirrel is confirmed through classifications by at least 10 users at Zooniverse. Once the color of a squirrel is classified, we map it, identify its habitat, and determine which morph occurs more often where. This lets us understand how quickly squirrels, and mammals like them, can adapt to changes in their habitats.
Measure natural selection on squirrel coloration by playing our SquirrelSpotter game
In this game you will search for squirrels in scenes of old growth forest, secondary forests, and roads, and we measure how long it takes you to find gray and black squirrels in each scene. By participating in the game you will directly measure the selection pressures on black and gray squirrels in each environment.
Map squirrels classified by citizen scientists with our Data explorer tool
Check out our interactive map below to explore the location and color morph of eastern gray squirrels. These observations were submitted by citizen scientists to iNaturalist, with the coat color of each squirrel classified by citizen scientists like you at Zooniverse. Over 45,000 people have contributed to this dataset through iNaturalist and Zooniverse.
Experience evolution by playing our Interactive digital squirrel game
This game lets you experience directly how the different squirrel morphs evolve across the changing landscape
get involved with the research
map
SQUIRRELs
with iNaturalist
classify squirrels
with Zooniverse
find
squirrels
with Squirrel Spotter
meet
squirrels
with this guide
