A Pennsylvania couple has trapped an inexplicably purple squirrel in their back yard. Sick of squirrels eating from their bird feeders, Percy and Connie Emert, of Jersey Shore, Pa., put out the traps to catch the furry rodents. But earlier this month, something strange happened: Mrs. Emert was monitoring the bird feeders when she spotted an abnormally colored squirrel. "I kept telling my husband I saw a purple one out in the yard. 'Oh sure you did' he kept telling me," Mrs. Emert tells AccuWeather. "Well, he checked the trap around noon on Sunday and sure enough, there it was."
The Emerts firmly deny dying the squirrel purple, and no one seems to know what could have caused its fur to change color. In 2008, a purple squirrel caused a sensation in the U.K, where some theorized it had fallen into purple ink. Krish Pillai, a professor at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, commented that "This is not good at all. That color looks very much like Tyrian purple. It is a natural organobromide compound seen in molluscs and rarely found in land animals. The squirrel (possibly) has too much bromide in its system."
The Daily Mail accuses the squirrel of drinking too much wine. An AccuWeather meteorologist suggests it "fell into a port-a-potty or something similar." Snooki says, "Omg I want!" Gothamist staffer Tien Mao suspects it "probably tried to rob a bank and got the dye pack all over himself." Everyone's a comedian. But as you can see from the photos, the squirrel isn't laughing, and the Emerts say they'll soon release it back into the wild, which seems like a perfectly good waste of what could be a delicious Purple Squirrel Paella.
