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The Arctic ground squirrel typically has a beige-tan pelage with a lightly-spotted backside. Similar to the related prairie dog, it has a shorter face than the typical arboreal squirrels–due to its lifestyle of burrowing–as well as smaller ears, with a dark tail and white markings around the eyes.
The California ground squirrel (Otospermophilus beecheyi), also known as the Beechey ground squirrel, [4] is a common and easily observed ground squirrel of the western United States and the Baja California Peninsula; it is common in Oregon and California and its range has relatively recently extended into Washington and northwestern Nevada.
Thirteen-lined ground squirrels can survive in hibernation for over six months without food or water and special physiological adaptations allow them to do so. [6] They alternate between torpor bouts of 7 to 10 days when their body temperatures drops to 5-7°C, and interbout arousals of less than 24 hours with their body temperature back to 37 ...
A California ground squirrel snacks on a vole in a Bay Area park. The squirrels were observed killing the small rodents last summer (Sonja Wild, UC Davis)
California ground squirrels deviating from a steady diet of nuts, seeds or grains was "shocking," said Jennifer E. Smith, study lead and associate professor of biology at UW-Eau Claire.
Urocitellus is a genus of ground squirrels.They were previously believed to belong to the much larger genus Spermophilus, but DNA sequencing of the cytochrome b gene showed that this group was paraphyletic to the prairie dogs and marmots, [2] [3] and could therefore no longer be retained as a single genus.
Ground squirrels are rodents of the squirrel family that generally live on the ground or in burrows, rather than in trees like the tree squirrels.The term is most often used for the medium-sized ground squirrels, as the larger ones are more commonly known as marmots (genus Marmota) or prairie dogs, while the smaller and less bushy-tailed ground squirrels tend to be known as chipmunks (genus ...
Otospermophilus is a genus of ground squirrels in the family Sciuridae, containing three species from Mexico and the United States. Otospermophilus was formerly placed in the large ground squirrel genus Spermophilus, as a subgenus or species group.