Firefoot squirrel
| Firefoot squirrel | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Funisciurus pyrropus | ||||||||||||
| ( Cuvier , 1833) |
The Feuerfußhörnchen or Red-legged tree squirrels ( Funisciurus pyrropus ) is a Hörnchenart from the kind of African striped squirrel ( Funisciurus ). It occurs in large parts of West and Central Africa.
features
The firefoot squirrel reaches an average head-trunk length of 19.0 to 23.0 centimeters, the tail is 15.3 to 18.0 centimeters long. The weight is about 260 to 340 grams. The rear foot length is 44 to 49 millimeters, the ear length 17 to 18 millimeters. It is a medium-sized squirrel with a gray to black fur on the back, the hair is banded in black and has a sand-colored tip. The head, the muzzle, the front and rear legs are light red to dull red-brown with monochrome red or rust-red hair. There is a white to pale gray side stripe on each side of the body. The peritoneum is pure white or white-gray in color. The muzzle is comparatively long and the eyes have a sand-colored eye ring, the ears are pale gray on the outside. The length of the tail corresponds to about 80% of the length of the head and torso. It is bushy and consists of banded hair, at the base it is black and at the tail end it is red-brown with a white-frosted tail tip. The females have two paired teats (0 + 0 + 1 + 1 = 4).
| 1 | · | 0 | · | 2 | · | 3 | = 22 |
| 1 | · | 0 | · | 1 | · | 3 |
The skull has a total length of 48.0 to 52.9 millimeters and a width of about 25.7 to 29.0 millimeters. Like all species of the genus has the type in the upper jaw half per one to a incisor tooth formed incisor (incisor) to which a tooth gap ( diastema follows). This is followed by two premolars and three molars . The teeth in the lower jaw correspond to those in the upper jaw, but only with a premolar. In total, the animals have a set of 22 teeth. The bony palate ends at the anterior margin of the last molars.
The firefoot squirrel is similar to other redshank squirrels found in the same region and differs from them mainly in its size and color. The sympatric occurring Thomas-African striped squirrel ( Funisciurus anerythrus ) has a drab gray-brown color with no red parts on the legs. The African red- cheeked squirrel ( Funisciurus eucogenys ) has a side stripe dissolved into individual spots and dark postauricular spots, the legs are more gray and correspond to the color of the back.
distribution
The firefox is found in large parts of West and Central Africa. The distribution area is divided into several separate, disjoint areas. In West Africa it extends from the states of Senegal and Gambia via Guinea , Guinea-Bissau , Sierra Leone , Liberia and Ivory Coast to western Ghana . Another area extends from the south of Nigeria , Cameroon and the Central African Republic via Equatorial Guinea to most of Gabon and the north-west of the Republic of the Congo . Separated from this is a deposit in the north of Angola to the extreme south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and another in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west of Uganda and Rwanda .
Way of life
The firefox lives in high forest stands and is also found in older secondary forest stands . It uses numerous different habitats of the rainforest of the lowlands up to altitudes of a maximum of about 1650 meters on the Bintumani in Sierra Leone.
Like other African squirrels, the animals are diurnal and live mainly in trees and on the forest floor. They look for their food mainly on the ground and in piles of wood and fallen branches as well as in the lower areas of the bushes and trees up to heights of about 1.5 meters. They feed primarily herbivorous of fruits and seeds, but also eat insects and other tierliche food. In stomach examinations of 12 animals from Gabon, fruits and seeds made up about 83% of the diet, about 13% was made up of insects. These were mainly ants and termites , which the animals can probably get out of the gaps in the bark and out of tree crevices with the help of their long snouts. As soldiers and workers as well as eggs and larvae were found among the ants and termites, it is assumed that the squirrels track down the animals' nests and destroy them completely. Fire foot squirrels usually occur as solitary animals and live solitary, much less often they are to be found in pairs, which, however, keep a clear distance from each other. Even in captivity, couples do not share a common nest and do not show any physical contact outside of the mating season. Territory sizes were determined to be 5.3 hectares for a single male, 1.0 hectare for a lactating female and 2.3 hectares for a young female. Communication takes place via various calls, including alarm calls.
Unlike other African squirrels, they build their nests on the ground in piles of wood and in underground structures, whereby the animals use several nests and individual nests can also be used by different individuals. In studies with animals equipped with transmitters, four squirrels used a total of 17 nests, 14 of which were underground and three on the ground. The ground nests are often simple tunnels that the croissants dug themselves in termite nests and that have two exits and a nest chamber. They also use existing burrows that were dug by other mammals such as the Emin giant hamster rat ( Cricetomys emini ) or the African tassel spike ( Atherurus africanus ).
There is no fixed mating season and the females can give birth to young animals several times a year. During the mating season, individual females are pursued by several males willing to mate. The litter usually consists of one young, twin or triplet births are less common.
Systematics
The firefoot squirrel is classified as an independent species within the genus of the redshank squirrel ( Funisciurus ), which consists of ten species. The first scientific description comes from the French zoologist Frédéric Cuvier from 1833, who described the animals as Sciurus pyrropus in his Histoire naturelle des mammifères , which he wrote together with Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire . He himself gave the island Fernando Po, today Bioko , as the place of discovery , on which the animals, however, do not occur. For this reason, it is believed that the animals were collected on the mainland, probably in Gabon or Equatorial Guinea.
Within the species, nine subspecies are distinguished together with the nominate form :
- Funisciurus pyrropus pyrropus : nominate form, occurs in Gabon.
- Funisciurus pyrropus akka : The subspecies lives in the east of the Republic of Congo and in Uganda. Unlike the nominate form, the face is not red and the legs and muzzle are washed in orange.
- Funisciurus pyrropus leonis : The form lives in Liberia. It is strongly red-brown in color, the sides of the body are red.
- Funisciurus pyrropus leucostigma : The subspecies occurs in the south of Ghana. The body has a dull siena shade and there is a red line below the side stripes. There is no red component on the top of the head.
- Funisciurus pyrropus mandingo : The form lives in Gambia. The back is tan and black, the legs and ears are colored orange.
- Funisciurus pyrropus nigrensis : The subspecies occurs in Nigeria between the Cross River and the Niger . Compared to the nominate form, the head is colored brown.
- Funisciurus pyrropus niveatus : The subspecies lives in northern Angola. It has a gray body color.
- Funisciurus pyrropus pempertoni : The very light-colored form occurs from southern Cameroon to the Mayombe forests in the Republic of Congo.
- Funisciurus pyrropus talboti : The subspecies lives on the Cameroon Mountain in Cameroon and in the southeast of Nigeria. The sides of the body are grayish red and olive brown.
Status, threat and protection
The firefoot squirrel is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) as not endangered (“least concern”). This is justified by the comparatively large distribution area, the assumed large populations of animals in their habitat, which also includes several protected areas, as well as the good adaptability to habitat changes. There are no known threats to the species' existence.
supporting documents
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Louise H. Emmons: Funisciurus pyrropus, Fire-Footeded Rope Squirrel. In: Jonathan Kingdon, David Happold, Michael Hoffmann, Thomas Butynski, Meredith Happold and Jan Kalina (eds.): Mammals of Africa Volume III. Rodents, Hares and Rabbits. Bloomsbury, London 2013, pp. 58-60; ISBN 978-1-4081-2253-2 .
- ↑ a b c d e Richard W. Thorington Jr. , John L. Koprowski, Michael A. Steele: Squirrels of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 2012; Pp. 221-222. ISBN 978-1-4214-0469-1
- ↑ Peter Grubb: Genus Funisciurus, Rope Squirrels. In: Jonathan Kingdon, David Happold, Michael Hoffmann, Thomas Butynski, Meredith Happold and Jan Kalina (eds.): Mammals of Africa Volume III. Rodents, Hares and Rabbits. Bloomsbury, London 2013, pp. 46-48; ISBN 978-1-4081-2253-2 .
- ↑ a b Funisciurus pyrropus in the IUCN 2016-2 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: O. Grubb, 2008. Retrieved September 16, 2016.
- ↑ Funisciurus pyrropus . In: Don E. Wilson , DeeAnn M. Reeder (Eds.): Mammal Species of the World. A taxonomic and geographic Reference. 2 volumes. 3. Edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4 .
literature
- Richard W. Thorington Jr. , John L. Koprowski, Michael A. Steele: Squirrels of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 2012; Pp. 221-222. ISBN 978-1-4214-0469-1
- Louise H. Emmons: Funisciurus pyrropus, Fire-Footeded Rope Squirrel. In: Jonathan Kingdon, David Happold, Michael Hoffmann, Thomas Butynski, Meredith Happold and Jan Kalina (eds.): Mammals of Africa Volume III. Rodents, Hares and Rabbits. Bloomsbury, London 2013, pp. 58-60; ISBN 978-1-4081-2253-2 .
Web links
- Funisciurus pyrropus inthe IUCN 2016-2 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: O. Grubb, 2008. Retrieved September 16, 2016.