| Oriental giant squirrels Fossil range: Middle Miocene to Recent |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Indian Giant Squirrel Ratufa indica |
|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Infraclass: | Eutheria |
| Superorder: | Euarchontoglires |
| Order: | Rodentia |
| Suborder: | Sciuromorpha |
| Family: | Sciuridae |
| Subfamily: | Ratufinae Moore, 1959 |
| Genus: | Ratufa Gray, 1867 |
| Species | |
Oriental giant squirrels are very large squirrels from the genus Ratufa in the subfamily Ratufinae. They are found in parts of south- and southeast Asia.
There are four living species of oriental giant squirrels:
- Pale Giant Squirrel, Ratufa affinis
- Black Giant Squirrel, Ratufa bicolor
- Indian Giant Squirrel, Ratufa indica
- Grizzled Giant Squirrel, Ratufa macroura
In prehistoric times this lineage was more widespread. For example, animals very similar to Ratufa and possibly belonging to this genus - at least belonging to the Ratufinae - were part of the early Langhian (Middle Miocene, some 16-15.2 million years ago) Hambach fauna of Germany.[1]
Footnotes
- ^ Gee et al. (2007)
References
- Gee, Carole T.; Sander, P. Martin & Petzelberger, Bianka E.M. (2003): A Miocene rodent nut cache in coastal dunes of the Lower Rhine Embayment, Germany. Palaeontology 46(6): 1133-1149. doi:10.1046/j.0031-0239.2003.00337.x (HTML abstract)
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
This Sciuridae article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
