squirrel

Also known as squirrel family, squirrels, Sciuridae, sciurids

OverviewAI-generated

Sciuridae is a taxonomic family within the order Rodentia, classified under the suborder Sciuromorpha. The family includes the subfamilies Sciurinae and Xerinae. Members of this group are characterized by their long, bushy tails. The scientific name is governed by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.

The family is diurnal. It is represented by the Unicode character 🐿️. The group is referenced by 1,968 other encyclopedia articles. Descriptions of the taxon appear in sources such as the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary and the Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition.

PubMed contains 12,490 records for the query "squirrel." The iDigBio database lists one record for the family sciuridae, held by the institution UMMZ. The topic is categorized under Category:Squirrels and is listed on the Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4 focus list.

Synthesized by Vinony from 22 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, PubMed, Encyclopedia of Life, iDigBio, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Species

松鼠科（學名：Sciuridae），是哺乳綱啮齿目一個科，其下包括松鼠亞科（Sciurinae）和非洲地松鼠亞科（Xerinae），特徵是長著毛茸茸的長尾巴。本科和與其親緣關係接近的動物组成松鼠形亞目（Sciuromorpha）。

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Museum specimens

Specimen records: 1
Family: Sciuridae
Collections: UMMZ

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Research

12,490 papers

The squirrel as a rodent model of the human visual system.ReviewVisual neuroscience · 2006Van Hooser SD, Nelson SBDOI: 10.1017/S0952523806230098
Multiple benefits of juvenile play: A ground squirrel's perspective.ReviewNeuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Nunes S, Monroy Montemayor MPDOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105099
Head arteries of the red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris).Veterinary research communications · 2023Zdun M, Ruszkowski JJ, Hetman M et al.DOI: 10.1007/s11259-022-10033-6
Cutaneous Histiocytosis in an Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis).Journal of wildlife diseases · 2024Brown KR, Clarke LL, Lien M et al.DOI: 10.7589/JWD-D-23-00139
A de novo genome assembly and annotation of the southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans).G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Wolf JF, Bowman J, Keobouasone S et al.DOI: 10.1093/g3journal/jkab373
A draft genome assembly for the eastern fox squirrel, Sciurus niger.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2021Kang L, Michalak P, Hallerman E et al.DOI: 10.1093/g3journal/jkab315
The squirrel is in the detail: Anatomy and morphometry of the tail in Sciuromorpha (Rodentia, Mammalia).Journal of morphology · 2021Hofmann R, Lehmann T, Warren DL et al.DOI: 10.1002/jmor.21412
Flying squirrels, hidden treasures.eLife · 2023Chow PKYDOI: 10.7554/eLife.89823

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Encyclopedic overview

15 sections

Contents

Etymology
Characteristics
Head
Tail
Lifetime
Behavior
Feeding
Taxonomy
Taxonomy list
Relationship with humans
See also
References
Sources
Further reading
External links

Squirrels ( ) are members of the family Sciuridae ( , ), a family that includes small or medium-sized rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squirrels are indigenous to the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa, and were introduced by humans to Australia. The earliest known fossilized squirrels date from the Eocene epoch, and among other living rodent families, the squirrels are most closely related to the mountain beaver and dormice.

== Etymology == The word squirrel, first attested in 1327, comes from the Anglo-Norman which is from the Old French , the reflex of a Latin word , which was taken from the Ancient Greek word (; from ('shade') and ('tail')), referring to the long bushy tail which many of its members have. Sciurus is also the name of one of its genera.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “squirrel” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.