Sun squirrels (genus Heliosciurus), form a taxon of squirrels under the subfamily Xerinae and the tribe Protoxerini. They are only found in sub-Saharan Africa.
| Sun squirrels Temporal range: Late Pleistocene to Recent
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| H. rufobrachium, Uganda | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Rodentia |
| Family: | Sciuridae |
| Tribe: | Protoxerini |
| Genus: | Heliosciurus Trouessart, 1880 |
| Type species | |
| Sciurus gambianus | |
| Species[1] | |
Either the habit of basking in the sun on tree branches[citation needed] or the tail being commonly used as a sunshade[2] gave this group its common name.
Sun squirrels have been implicated in the spread of human monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[citation needed]
There are six species in the genus:
- Gambian sun squirrel, Heliosciurus gambianus
- Mutable sun squirrel, Heliosciurus mutabilis
- Small sun squirrel, Heliosciurus punctatus
- Red-legged sun squirrel, Heliosciurus rufobrachium
- Ruwenzori sun squirrel, Heliosciurus ruwenzorii
- Zanj sun squirrel, Heliosciurus undulatus
References
edit- ^ Thorington, R.W. Jr.; Hoffmann, R.S. (2005). "Family Sciuridae". In Wilson, D.E.; Reeder, D.M (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: a taxonomic and geographic reference (3rd ed.). The Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 754–818. ISBN 0-8018-8221-4. OCLC 26158608.
- ^ Thomas, H.H.; Best, T.L.; Agwanda, B. (September 2019). "Heliosciurus rufobrachium (Rodentia: Sciuridae)". Mammalian Species. 51 (978): 61–69. doi:10.1093/mspecies/sez010.
- Nowak, Ronald M. (1999), Walker's Mammals of the World, 6th edition, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp 1281–1282.
- list of the squirrels in the world www.squirrels.org, archived at web.archive.org
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