Origin of the Kaibab Squirrel
by Duane T. Gish, Ph.D., Creation Research Society Quarterly 26(1):5 June, 1989

The tassel-eared squirrel, Sciurus aberti, inhabits areas in Arizona, New Mexico, and in several isolated spots in Mexico. It feeds on cones and terminal buds of Ponderosa Pine, so its distribution is limited to Ponderosa Pine forested areas. The Grand Canyon, 200 miles long, 5,000 feet deep, and 12 to 15 miles across, with the Colorado River running through it, acts as a barrier to terrestrial animal movement. What is commonly called the Abert squirrel inhabits the Coconino Plateau, just to the south of the Grand Canyon, and what is called the Kaibab squirrel inhabits the Kaibab Plateau, just to the north of the Grand Canyon, across from the Coconino Plateau. Some zoologists give the Kaibab squirrel species status, Scuirus kaibabensis, while others designate it as a subspecies, _Scuirus aberti kaibabensis_, of the Abert squirrel. Supposedly, according to evolutionists, the Grand Canyon has existed for at least several million years, separating the two varieties of the tassel-eared squirrel into populations isolated from one another. This separation, they believe, was of sufficient duration to permit differentation into separate species, or at least into separate subspecies.

John Meyer (1985, pp. 68-78) examined nearly 100 specimens of Kaibab and Abert squirrels in the Grand Canyon National Park Study Collection. The purpose of his study was to determine the extent of the differences between the Kaibab and Abert squirrels, and, using the generally accepted notions of zoologists concerning the mechanisms required to give rise to variations and the time required for such changes to take place, to estimate the time these two populations of squirrels have been isolated from one another. If the separation of the ancestors of these two varieties of the tassel-eared squirrels into isolated populations was indeed caused by the formation of the Grand Canyon, this estimate would thus provide an approximate time for the formation of the Grand Canyon. Meyer's studies convinced him that the differences between the Kaibab and Abert squirrels were essentially minor, being limited to relatively slight differences in coloration, and thus, if the differentiation were caused by separation due to the formation of the Grand Canyon, the formation of the Grand Canyon must have occurred recently; on the order of thousands of years ago, rather than several million years.

In general, the main color features of the typical Abert squirrel include a dark-colored tail, a white belly, and a steel-gray body. The typical Kaibab squirrel has a white tail and a nearly pure-black belly. Except for these differences, the Kaibab and Abert squirrels appear to be similar in all respects, according to Meyer. There is significant variation in the coloration of both the Kaibab and the Abert squirrel, although the variation is more striking in the Abert squirrel. This variation has given rise to Abert squirrels that resemble Kaibab squirrels and Kaibab squirrels that resemble Abert squirrels. Thus Hall (1967) refers to some of the squirrels on the north rim as "Abert-like Kaibabs," and in the Grand Canyon National Park Study Collection, Meyer found a drawer of animals labeled "Kaibab-like Aberts." Based on 28 measurements from the skulls of each of 10 individuals, Meyer reports that the morphology of Kaibab squirrels differs little from that of Abert squirrels, which is in agreement with the reports of other investigators.

Of the ten conditions which evolutionists assume that must exist for significant genetic variations to arise and thus for evolution to occur, Meyer would definitely associate eight of these, and possibly all ten, with the two isolated populations of tassel-eared squirrels. Based on evolutionary assumptions, then, if the Kaibab and Abert populations of the tassel-eared squirrels have been separated for several million years, these two populations should differ in very significant ways. Because of the minute differences between Kaibab and Abert squirrels that Meyer was able to identify, limited as they were to minor differences in coloration, he maintains that the Abert squirrels on the south rim and the Kaibab squirrels on the north rim of the Grand Canyon represent, for all practical purposes, one continuous population. Therefore, he reasons, the separation must have been recent, thus indicating a recent formation for the Grand Canyon.

While one may agree with Meyer that the data indicate these two populations of squirrels have not been separated for several million years, it will be difficult for some to agree that this establishes an approximate age for the formation of the Grand Canyon. If the Grand Canyon was formed during the waning stages of the Flood, as receding Flood waters drained from the emerging North American continent, there would have been no squirrels on either rim of the newly formed Grand Canyon. It would be many years after the formation of the Grand Canyon before squirrels and other animals could have arrived. It appears more likely that the tassel-eared squirrel migrated to areas on both sides of the Grand Canyon and that these areas have since become ecologically isolated from one another in relatively recent times. Evolutionists, of course, assume that this isolation occurred several million years ago, whatever the causative factors. This assumption, Meyer's work definitely contradicts.