Beautiful squirrel
| Beautiful squirrel | ||||||||||||
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Prevost squirrel ( Callosciurus prevostii ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Callosciurinae | ||||||||||||
| Pocock , 1923 |
The beautiful squirrels (Callosciurinae) are a subfamily of tropical squirrels that are found in South and Southeast Asia with an immense biodiversity . The name beautiful squirrel is derived from the sometimes very varied coat colors.
features
Many species of the beautiful squirrels are colored red, golden yellow or white and often patterned in bright tones. The tails are more or less bushy, most species have no tufts of ears. However, zoologists group the species together in this subfamily based on various anatomical features of the skull and teeth.
| 1 | · | 0 | · | 2 | · | 3 | = 22 |
| 1 | · | 0 | · | 1 | · | 3 |
All kinds of callosciurinae have a one in the upper jaw per half incisor tooth trained incisors (incisive) to which a tooth gap ( diastema follows). This is followed by two premolars and three molars . In contrast, only one premolar is formed in the lower jaw. In total, the animals have a set of 22 teeth.
Way of life
Most squirrels are diurnal and adapted to a strict life in the trees, an arboricolous way of life.
Systematics
In cladistic analyzes, squirrels were confirmed to be a clearly monophyletic taxon . The genus Exilisciurus is the sister group to all other beautiful squirrels.
In total, the squirrels are divided into 14 genera with 65 species:
- Real beautiful squirrels ( Callosciurus ), 14 species
- Red squirrel ( Dremomys ), 5 species
- Asian miniature squirrel ( Exilisciurus ), 3 species
- Striped palm squirrel ( Funambulus ), 5 species
- Borneo miniature squirrel ( Glyphotes ), monotypical
- Piglet squirrel ( Hyosciurus ), 2 species
- Black chipmunk ( Lariscus ), 4 species
- Berdmore's palm squirrel ( Menetes ), monotypical
- Brown miniature squirrel ( Nannosciurus ), monotypical
- Sulawesi miniature squirrel ( Prosciurillus ), 7 species
- Long-nosed squirrel ( Rhinosciurus ), monotypical
- Sulawesi giant squirrel ( Rubrisciurus ), monotypical
- Sunda tree squirrels ( Sundasciurus ), 18 species
- Tree chipmunk ( Tamiops ), 4 species
The scientific name of the genus Callosciurus is made up of the Greek words "callo" for "beautiful", "skia" for "shadow" and "oura" for "tail".
literature
- Michael D. Carleton, Guy G. Musser: Order Rodentia. In: Don E. Wilson , DeeAnn M. Reeder (Eds.): Mammal Species of the World. A taxonomic and geographic Reference. Volume 2. 3rd edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4 , pp. 745-1600.
supporting documents
- ^ Robert S. Hoffmann, Andrew T. Smith: Subfamily Callosciurinae. In: Andrew T. Smith , Yan Xie: A Guide to the Mammals of China. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 2008, ISBN 978-0-691-09984-2 , p. 182.
- ↑ Peter WW Lurz, Virginia Hayssen, Kimberly Geissler, Sandro Bertolino: Callosciurus erythraeus (Rodentia: Sciuridae) . In: Mammalian Species . tape 45 , no. 902 , 2013, p. 60-74 , doi : 10.1644 / 902.1 .
