Pine squirrel
American Red Squirrel
The American Red Squirrel ( Tamiasciurus ), known in the U.S. as Chickarees, are a genus of squirrels, which are now counted among the tree squirrels.
There are three different types:
- American Red Squirrel ( Tamiasciurus hudsonicus ), Canada, Alaska, Rocky Mountains, Northeastern USA
- Douglas squirrel ( Tamiasciurus douglasii ), Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada
- Mearns - squirrel ( Tamiasciurus mearnsi ), northern Lower California
The term " red squirrel " can lead to confusion, since it also gives the Chinese Red Squirrel and belonging to the genus of Amazonian squirrel red squirrel. In addition, the squirrel in English as red squirrel is known. In the U.S., the term " red squirrel " but is used from time immemorial to the genus Tamiasciurus.
Features
Despite the name, the red squirrels are not red. They are colored very variable, the top is beige brown, olive-brown or black -brown; often it is darker in winter than in summer. The underside is white in the commons red squirrels and brown at the Douglas squirrel. Along the edge runs a blackish longitudinal stripes, but in many individuals hardly stands out from the underlying coat color and then is invisible. The body length is 20 cm, added about 12 cm tail. The weight is 150 to 300 grams.
Way of life
Most frequently see red squirrels in conifer forests, where they are among the most common mammals. Less often they are dominated by gray squirrels deciduous and mixed forests. Red squirrels are diurnal and move more frequently than squirrels on the ground. You build different nests: In the summer of them reaches a nest in a crotch while they maintain bolster for the winter a hole in a tree trunk - often hold abandoned woodpecker holes for this purpose here. In colder parts of their range they live in underground tunnels, where they spend the winter; Here they take on the transition systems of ground squirrels and stubby tail squirrel. Red squirrels do not hibernate, stay in very cold weather but sometimes several days in their caves, which are sure equipped with food supplies.
The main food of red squirrels are the cones of conifers. These are dissolved from the tree and brought to the pantries. Some of these pantries can accommodate up to 160 pins. In addition to pin red squirrels eat all kinds of animal and vegetable substances, including nuts, fruits, bark, fungi, birds' eggs and young birds.
Red squirrels live solitary and defend a territory, which is centered in their pantries. Couples come together only briefly for mating. This happens in late winter; in the warmer parts of the range, there is also a second mating season in the summer. The females give birth after a gestation period of 35 days, four to six young. These are suckled for up to eight weeks and become self-employed after 18 weeks. The life span of red squirrels in the wild is up to seven years.
Threat and protection
The red squirrels seem to have a major role in the spread of conifers to play by carry around the seed scales of the cones far. Since the Common Red Squirrel is so common, it is hardly threatened by the fur hunting. About 2 million red squirrels are killed each year to supply their coat of Pelzverarbetiung in Canada. Bad it is, however, a subspecies of the commons Rothörnchens, the Mount Graham red squirrel - ( Tamiasciurus hudsonicus grahamensis ), isolated from the other populations in Arizona that lives. There are of this subspecies only 200 individuals, which is why it is " critically endangered " by the IUCN in the status led.
System
The position of the red squirrel in the squirrel has always been problematic. Initially, they were united in a common tribe due to similarities of the external genitals with the Chinese Red Squirrel. The relationship between the two groups but was doubted early on. Several authors reported the red squirrels due to other morphological features in the vicinity of the ground squirrel and ground squirrel. Since 2003, the cladistic analyzes of Mercer and Roth and Herron, Castoe and Parkinson's disease have shown that the red squirrels are very close to the tree squirrels. Carleton and Musser arrange them accordingly in this tribe.