Pinto Bean was an eastern gray squirrel on the campus of the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

who was renowned and named for his rare

piebald A piebald or pied animal is one that has a pattern of unpigmented spots (white) on a pigmented background of hair, feathers or scales. Thus a piebald black and white dog is a black dog with white spots. The animal's skin under the white backg ...

pattern. He died in

Champaign Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in the state outside the Chicago metr ...

on October 8, 2022, presumably due to a motor vehicle collision. Pinto Bean has been called a "minor celebrity" and a "grassroots, unofficial mascot" for the university. During a home

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

game against

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, a tribute to Pinto Bean was shown on the

jumbotron A jumbotron, sometimes referred to as jumbovision, is a video display using large-screen television technology (video wall). The original technology was developed in the early 1980s by Mitsubishi Electric and Sony, which coined JumboTron as a ...

at Memorial Stadium.

Pattern

A male eastern gray squirrel, Pinto Bean was named for his distinctive mixture of gray fur with patches of unpigmented white fur, which resembled the appearance of

pinto bean The pinto bean () is a variety of Phaseolus vulgaris, common bean (''Phaseolus vulgaris''). In Spanish language, Spanish they are called . It is the most popular bean by crop production in Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States, South ...

s. According to Illinois Natural History Survey director Eric Shauber, this was the result of a rare genetic mutation that affected where

melanin Melanin (; ) is a family of biomolecules organized as oligomers or polymers, which among other functions provide the pigments of many organisms. Melanin pigments are produced in a specialized group of cells known as melanocytes. There are ...

was distributed in the squirrel's body. Shauber said the mutation was rare enough to assume that there was only one such squirrel on campus.

Death and taxidermy

Pinto Bean was found dead on the side of Springfield Avenue in

on October 8, 2022. His cause of death was presumably a vehicular collision. News of his death quickly spread on the r/UIUC

subreddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

and other social media. One user, Champaign resident Clark Jackson, retrieved the squirrel's remains and delivered them to a

taxidermist Taxidermy is the art of preserving an animal's body by mounting (over an armature) or stuffing, for the purpose of display or study. Animals are often, but not always, portrayed in a lifelike state. The word ''taxidermy'' describes the process ...

in Bloomington in an effort to preserve the squirrel. As of March 27, 2023, Pinto Bean's taxidermied remains are on display at the Forbes Natural History Building on the south side of the university's campus.

Tributes

During

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

's October 15, 2022, home

game against

, the

at Memorial Stadium displayed a tribute to Pinto Bean at halftime. The screen displayed an image of Pinto Bean, accompanied by the message: "RIP to Pinto Bean the Squirrel, forever in our hearts." The Illini Wildlife and Conservation Club held a moment of silence in remembrance of Pinto Bean. Students and community members shared many tributes and eulogies on r/UIUC.

References

{{University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 2022 animal deaths Individual animals in the United States Individual squirrels Individual taxidermy exhibits Road incident deaths in Illinois University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Pattern

Death and taxidermy

Tributes

See also

References