Oriental giant squirrel

Oriental giant squirrels
Temporal 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

Ratufa affinis
Ratufa bicolor
Ratufa indica
Ratufa macroura

Synonyms

Eoscuirus, Rukaia

Oriental giant squirrels are very large tree squirrels from the genus Ratufa in the subfamily Ratufinae. They are a distinctive element of the fauna of south and southeast Asia.

There are four living species of oriental giant squirrels:

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

  1. ^ Gee et al. (2007)

References