Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Sciuridae > Urocitellus > Urocitellus columbianus

Urocitellus columbianus (Columbian ground squirrel)

Synonyms: Arctomys columbianus; Citellus columbianus; Spermophilus columbianus

Wikipedia Abstract

The Columbian ground squirrel (Urocitellus columbianus), is a species of rodent common in certain regions of Canada and the northwestern United States. It is the second largest member of the genus Urocitellus, which is part of the tribe Marmotini, along with marmots, chipmunks, prairie dogs, and other holarctic ground squirrels. They are stout, with short dense fur, which is characteristically tawny across the bridge of the nose. Social encounters often are initiated with kissing behavior and the most common activity above ground is standing at attention. Residing in mountainous terrain and high plains in northern latitudes, they hibernate most of the year in underground burrows, which may be used for many years. They are emaciated when emerging in the spring. These long periods of torpor
View Wikipedia Record: Urocitellus columbianus

Infraspecies

Urocitellus columbianus columbianus
Urocitellus columbianus ruficaudus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
1
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
9
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 2.94
EDGE Score: 1.37
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  1.087 lbs (493 g)
Birth Weight [2]  9 grams
Diet [3]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Granivore, Herbivore
Diet - Invertibrates [3]  20 %
Diet - Plants [3]  40 %
Diet - Seeds [3]  40 %
Forages - Ground [3]  100 %
Female Maturity [4]  1 year 7 months
Gestation [2]  24 days
Litter Size [2]  3
Litters / Year [2]  1
Maximum Longevity [4]  4 years
Snout to Vent Length [4]  14 inches (35 cm)
Weaning [2]  30 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Felisa A. Smith, S. Kathleen Lyons, S. K. Morgan Ernest, Kate E. Jones, Dawn M. Kaufman, Tamar Dayan, Pablo A. Marquet, James H. Brown, and John P. Haskell. 2003. Body mass of late Quaternary mammals. Ecology 84:3403
♦ 2Spermophilus columbianus, Charles L. Elliott and Jerran T. Flinders, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 372, pp. 1-9 (1991)
♦ 3Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6Individual variation in the ability of Columbian ground squirrels to select an optimal diet, MARK E. RITCHIE, Evolutionary Ecology, 1988, 2, 232-252
♦ 7International Flea Database
♦ 8Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0