Sciuridae Hemprich 1820
Creators: name: Hoffmann, Robert S.
name: Anderson, Charles G.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 1993
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Rodentia
Sciuridae

description: Family Sciuridae Hemprich, 1820. Grundriss Naturgesch., p. 32. COMMENTS: Ellerman (1940) reviewed the history of sciurid classification. The first modern classification (Pocock, 1923) recognized six subfamilies: Sciurinae, Tamiasciurinae, Funambulinae, Callosciurinae, Xerinae, and Marmotinae. Simpson (1945) recognized the same taxa, but all at the tribal level. Ellerman (1940) avoided formal designation, but recognized seven "sections" in the Sciurus "group, " which often do not conform with the above. Moore (1959) recognized Simpson's six tribes and, in addition, Ratufini and Paraxerini for certain genera that had previously been included in Funambulini. Black (1963) elevated Tamiini to tribal level (previously in Marmotini). Gromov et al. (1965) elevated the ground squirrels to subfamily rank, Marmotinae, which included the tribes Tamiini Black, Otospermophilini Gromov, Citellini Gromov, Marmotini Simpson (part), and Cynomyini Gromov. He also recognized the subfamilies Xerinae and Sciurinae, but did not treat any other groups. Emry and Thorington (1984) submerged Tamiasciurini in Sciurini and Tamiini in Marmotini. They also (1982) described the oldest known sciurid, <i>Protosciurus,</i> which they interpreted as an arboreal form similar to <i>Sciurus</i> from which both flying squirrels and ground squirrels have been derived. These authors treated flying squirrels as a monophyletic sister group to other squirrels, either as a family (Pocock, 1923) or subfamily (other authors). The monophyly of flying squirrels has been both supported (Thorington, 1984) and challenged (Hight et al., 1974). Heaney (1985) recommended that the subtribe Hyosciurina of Moore (1959) be discarded because it lacks defining characters, and that the component genera <i>(Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus,</i> <i>Rubisciurus,</i> and <i>Exilisciurus)</i> be retained in tribe Callosciurini Simpson, 1945. A catolog of Indian sciurids was presented by Agrawal and Chakraborty (1979).
description: Published as part of <i>Robert S. Hoffmann &amp; Charles G. Anderson, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Sciuridae, pp. 419-465 in Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London :Smithsonian Institution Press</i> on page 419, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7353130
description: {"references": ["Ellerman, J. R. 1940. The families and genera of living rodents. Vol. 1. Rodents other than Muridae. Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History), London, 689 pp.", "Pocock, R. I. 1923. The classification of Sciuridae. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1923 (1): 209 - 246.", "Simpson, G. G. 1945. The principles of classification and a classification of mammals. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 85: 1 - 350.", "Moore, J. C. 1959. Relationships among the living squirrels of the Sciurinae. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 118 (4): 157 - 206.", "Black, C. C. 1963. A review of the North American Tertiary Sciuridae. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, 130: 109 - 248.", "Gromov, I. M., D. I. Bibikov, N. I. Kalabukhov, and M. N. N. Meier. 1965. Fauna SSSR, Mlekopitayushchie, tom. 3, vyp. 2 [Fauna of the U. S. S. R. Mammals. vol. 3, No. 2]. Nazemnye belich'e [Ground Squirrels]. Nauka, Moscow-Leningrad, 467 pp. (in Russian).", "Emry, R. J., and R. W. Thorington, Jr. 1984. The tree squirrel Sciurus (Sciuridae, Rodentia) as a living fossil. Pp. 23 - 31, in Living fossils (N. Eldredge and S. M. Stanley, eds.). Springer-Verlag, New York, 291 pp.", "Thorington, R. W., Jr. 1984. Flying squirrels are monophyletic. Science, 225: 1048 - 1050.", "Hight, M. E., M. Goodman, and W. Prychodko. 1974. Immunological studies of the Sciuridae. Systematic Zoology, 23: 12 - 25.", "Agrawal, V. C., and S. Chakraborty. 1979. Catalogue of mammals in the Zoological Survey of India. Part 1. Sciuridae. Records of the Zoological Survey of India, 74: 333 - 481."]}