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Urocitellus
| Urocitellus | |
|---|---|
| |
| Richardson's ground squirrel in Manitoba | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Rodentia |
| Family: | Sciuridae |
| Tribe: | Marmotini |
| Genus: | Urocitellus Obolenskij, 1927 |
| Type species | |
| Spermophilus eversmanni | |
| Species | |
|
See text. | |
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] and could therefore no longer be retained as a single genus. As a result, Urocitellus is now considered as a genus in its own right.[3]
All but two species are native to the northern and western parts of North America, from California and Minnesota through the north-western United States and western Canada; the Arctic ground squirrel inhabits Arctic terrain on both sides of the Bering Strait, while the long-tailed ground squirrel is exclusively found in Asia. The name of the genus is said to be derived from the Latin uro, meaning "tail" and citellus for "ground squirrel".[3] The proper word for "tail" in classical Latin is cauda.[4] Oura (οὐρά) is the ancient Greek word for "tail".[5]
- ^ Kryštufek, Boris; Vohralík, Vladimir (15 December 2013). "Taxonomic revision of the Palaearctic rodents (Rodentia). Part 2. Sciuridae: Urocitellus, Marmota, and Sciurotamias". Lynx. 44.
- ^ Herron, Matthew D.; Castoe, Todd A.; Parkinson, Christopher L. (2004). "Sciurid phylogeny and the paraphyly of Holarctic ground squirrels (Spermophilus)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 31 (3): 1015–30. Bibcode:2004MolPE..31.1015H. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2003.09.015. PMID 15120398.
- ^ a b Helgen, Kristofer M.; Cole, F. Russel; Helgen, Lauren E. & Wilson, Don E (2009). "Generic Revision in the Holarctic Ground Squirrel Genus Spermophilus". Journal of Mammalogy. 90 (2): 270–305. doi:10.1644/07-MAMM-A-309.1.
- ^ Lewis, C.T. & Short, C. (1879). A Latin dictionary founded on Andrews' edition of Freund's Latin dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- ^ Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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