The Zoochat Photographic Guide to Rodents: part one

Excellent, I'll add that in.

 

Another new species has been added - Asia Minor Ground Squirrel Spermophilus xanthoprymnus by @devilfish

The Spermophilus post is here (#132 in this current thread): The Zoochat Photographic Guide to Rodents: part one

Photo in the gallery here: Anatolian ground squirrel, January 2020 - ZooChat

 

Another new species added: Western Grey Squirrel Sciurus griseus by @Giant Eland.

The Sciurus entries are on page one of this thread.

There are two photos in the Turtle Bay Exploration Park gallery (under USA); I used the first one below.

 

And another new species (and excitingly a new genus) added to the thread: Groove-toothed Flying Squirrel Aeretes melanopterus by @Deer Forest

The post is at the bottom of page two of this thread.


Northern Chinese flying squirrel - ZooChat


The photo was actually uploaded in September last year but I missed it because I was travelling at the time.

 

Another new species for the thread, Red Bush Squirrel Paraxerus palliatus by @Giant Eland.


red bush squirrel or red-bellied coast squirrel (Paraxerus palliatus) - ZooChat


Currently on post #116 of the thread (The Zoochat Photographic Guide to Rodents: part one).

 

Another new squirrel species added to the thread, with Mutable Sun Squirrel Heliosciurus mutabilis by @Giant Eland


mutable sun squirrel (Heliosciurus mutabilis) - ZooChat

Post here (#114, on page 6 of the thread): The Zoochat Photographic Guide to Rodents: part one


I can't really find any good (and reliable) pictures online to confirm this ID but the species is really variable in colouration and I think it is probably correct. African squirrels are confusing.

 

Yeah, those were the two species it had to be between. Being found high or low on the trees isn't a good indicator, because simply being found low on a tree doesn't mean anything really.

Both species are really variable apparently. I was swayed by Kingdon's Mammals of Africa saying that the body of the Mutable Sun Squirrel was abundantly flecked in cream and that it has a blackish tail which could both fit with your uploaded photo - but the other photo shows the tail fully and it is that of a Smith's. And also the Kingdon field guide in which I (just now) finally found a picture of the Mutable Sun Squirrel, shows an animal nothing like the written description in the other book (for one thing the tail is shown as being very prominently banded!).

 

A paper has just been published on the taxonomy of the Sciurinae, which included genetic samples from almost every species (Museomics of tree squirrels: a dense taxon sampling of mitogenomes reveals hidden diversity, phenotypic convergence, and the need of a taxonomic overhaul | BMC Evolutionary Biology).

Because the genus Sciurus has always been such a taxonomic mess, I had retained all the species within Sciurus anyway and just made some comments on various scenarios in the introductory post for it (The Zoochat Photographic Guide to Rodents: part one), so I didn't have to rework the thread at all - and even if I'd wanted to do that, the whole thing would need to be changed next time someone publishes a paper!

But below is how this new paper has divided up the genera within the subfamily.


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Tamiasciurus remains in line with the standard, with three species (douglasii, hudsonicus, fremonti) although they didn't include genetic samples for fremonti in their study. (In this thread I include fremonti as a subspecies within hudsonicus with the note that it may be a full species, but separate mearnsi with the note that it may not be valid. (This post: The Zoochat Photographic Guide to Rodents: part one)


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Rheithrosciurus remains monotypic (R. macrotis).


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Microsciurus (the Neotropical dwarf squirrels) has been divided into three genera (one unnamed). The genus is in this post of the thread: The Zoochat Photographic Guide to Rodents: part one.


Microsciurus
Microsciurus alfari (including M. venustulus)
Microsciurus "species 1" (a Colombian form previously included within M. mimulus)

Leptosciurus
Leptosciurus mimulus
Leptosciurus pucheranii (the study found that Sciurus pucheranii was not actually a single variable species but rather two entirely different lineages, and hence they placed one form (the nominate subspecies pucheranii) here amongst the dwarf squirrels and the remaining subspecies they renamed as Hadrosciurus ignitus)
Leptosciurus similis
Leptosciurus otinus
Leptosciurus boquetensis
Leptosciurus isthmius

"Microsciurus"
"Microsciurus" sabanillae
"Microsciurus" "species 2" (an undescribed form from Peru and Brazil, variously included in Microsciurus or Syntheosciurus)
"Microsciurus" flaviventer

(Note that M. santanderensis and M. simonsi are not included in the three genera above because they were amongst the few species not sampled genetically in this study).


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Syntheosciurus retains the Bangs' Mountain Squirrel (S. brochus) but they add in the Red-tailed Squirrel (S. granatensis) which seems suspect.


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For Sciurus they retained only three species in the genus (only the Old World species, and apparently not recognising S. meridionalis at all) and divided all the rest between nine genera:

Sciurus for anomalus, lis and vulgaris.

Hesperosciurus for griseus and aberti.

Parasciurus for arizonensis, nayaritensis, niger, alleni and oculatus.

Neosciurus for carolinensis.

Syntheosciurus for granatensis (this was an existing genus to which they moved this one Sciurus species; and they include richmondi in granatensis).

Echinosciurus for aureogaster, colliaei, deppei, yucatanensis and variegatoides.

Leptosciurus for pucheranii (this was a genus they created to house some of the Microsciurus species, and to which they moved this one Sciurus species).

Simosciurus for nebouxii and stramineus.

Guerlinguetus for aestuans and brasiliensis.

Hadrosciurus for igniventris, pyrrhinus, ignitus and spadiceus.

 

A photo of Northern Flying Squirrel Glaucomys sabrinus has been added by @Giant Eland which bumps the species total for the thread up another one.


Northern flying squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus) - ZooChat

The photo was taken at the Maine Wildlife Park which mostly has local animals apparently, but both sabrinus and volans are found in Maine. I can't really tell the two species apart, but the tail does look much too long for the animal to be a volans.

 

Because it is quite common for zoos to misidentify small mammals, or to keep old signage for new animals, or to put new animals into the enclosures of previous or existing animals.

I'm not saying this squirrel has to be misidentified - I think it is a Northern - but with the rodent threads it has happened quite a few times that a photo turns out to actually be some other species (and also just the other day on the marsupial thread with the Smithsonian's Common Opossum).

 

Another new squirrel photo - of a Cascade Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel Callospermophilus saturatus by @Zoological Point - taking the total number of squirrels illustrated in this thread to 122 species!


Callospermophilus saturatus - ZooChat