FLYING SQUIRRELS IN ROCK ART?

Newspaper Rock, Indian Creek, San Juan

County, UT. Photo Sherman Spear, 1966.

One marvelous rock art site known to many people in the Rocky Mountain West is Newspaper Rock in San Juan County, UT. Newspaper Rock has a petroglyph panel of mixed Fremont culture  and Ute rock art. It was one of my early sites in my first few years of interest in rock art.

Newspaper Rock close-up, Indian Creek, San Juan

County, UT. Photo Sherman Spear, 1966. Arrows

point to figures under discussion.

Newspaper Rock, Indian Creek, San Juan

County, UT. Photo Glen Weaver,
Sept. 1999. CRAA Archives.

In the upper left portion of the panel of petroglyphs are three enigmatic figures that have four outstretched limbs (arms and legs), fairly large tails, and what looks like nothing more than a fabric panel stretched out between the arms and legs. From the very first time I saw them they struck me as portrayals of flying squirrels but this seemed so improbable that I really did not take it seriously. From relative repatination these enigmatic figures appear to be early Ute in provenance rather than Fremont culture.

Flying Squirrel in flight. Image courtesty

CyHampsonFlyingSquirrels.com.

Map of Northern Flying Squirrel range.

Public domain. Note the outliers in Utah

- especially in Southeastern Utah.

In a location like the Canyonlands of the desert southwest I would not have expected to find portrayals of a creature that I associate with the northern forests, but imagine my surprise when I looked into the range of the Northern Flying Squirrel and found that it did extend down into just about that area. Could these figures actually represent flying squirrels? Perhaps some of you with knowledge on Ute mythology could cast some light on this possibility.