Neotropical pygmy squirrel

Neuweltliches small squirrel ( Sciurillus pusillus)

The New World smallest squirrel ( Sciurillus pusillus) is a little -studied tree squirrels of tropical South America. It lives in northern Brazil, northeastern Peru, in French Guiana and Guyana.

With a head-body length of ten centimeters and a tail length of twelve inches, this is the second smallest squirrel - kind in the world. Mini croissants have a brown coat color. They inhabit the treetops of the tropical rainforest region. Here they run around quickly and look for fruits, nuts and tree bark. A striking feature of this animal is the shrill cry that resembles the chirping of a grasshopper.

The systematic classification of the smallest squirrel is uncertain. It was placed in the vicinity of the New World Dwarf Squirrel long. McKenna and Bell, however, saw in their classification to all other tree squirrels as a sister group of the small squirrel. New cladistic analyzes even give rise to the presumption that the mini croissants does not belong to the tree squirrels, but a separate branch of the croissant is. Taking this into account, they are of Carleton and Musser in a separate subfamily, Sciurillinae led.