X. rutilus lacks stripes, but the other three species have a white or buffy stripe on the sides from the shoulders to the haunches. The tail is somewhat flattened and may be darker than the rest of the body, but in the young of some species the light-colored tips to the hairs of the tail almost mask the darker basal part of the hairs. The coat is frequently tinted the color of the soil in which the animal lives, because tiny soil particles adhere to the hairs. The ears are small, and the claws are long and only slightly curved. The incisors are orange in X. rutilus and X. erythropus, white in X. inauris, and yellow in X. princeps.
Females have two to six mammae.
These ground squirrels occur in open woodlands, grasslands, or rocky country. They are diurnal and terrestrial, and they live in burrows that they dig themselves. X. princeps may make extensive use of crevices in rocks. There evidently is no hibernation or storage of food supplies. The diet consists of roots, seeds, fruits, pods, grains, insects, small vertebrates, and birds' eggs.