Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Sciuridae > Ratufa > Ratufa indica

Ratufa indica (Indian giant squirrel)

Synonyms: Sciurus indicus

Wikipedia Abstract

The Indian giant squirrel, or Malabar giant squirrel, (Ratufa indica) is a large tree squirrel species genus Ratufa native to India. It is a large-bodied diurnal, arboreal, and herbivorous squirrel found in South Asia. It is called शेकरू 'Shekru' in Marathi and is state animal of Maharashtra.
View Wikipedia Record: Ratufa indica

Infraspecies

Ratufa indica centralis
Ratufa indica dealbata
Ratufa indica indica
Ratufa indica maxima

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
4
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
36
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 10.24
EDGE Score: 3.11
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  4.409 lbs (2.00 kg)
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates), Frugivore, Granivore, Herbivore
Diet - Fruit [2]  30 %
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  10 %
Diet - Plants [2]  20 %
Diet - Seeds [2]  30 %
Diet - Vertibrates [2]  10 %
Forages - Arboreal [2]  100 %
Gestation [1]  84 days
Litter Size [1]  1
Maximum Longevity [1]  20 years
Snout to Vent Length [3]  18 inches (46 cm)

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Western Ghats and Sri Lanka India, Sri Lanka No

Emblem of

Maharashtra

Prey / Diet

Ficus callosa[4]
Ficus minahassae (clustertree)[4]
Ficus tsjakela[4]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Felis silvestris (Wildcat)[5]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Echinococcus granulosus (hydatid worm)[6]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish 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
♦ 3Nathan 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
♦ 4"Fig-eating by vertebrate frugivores: a global review", MIKE SHANAHAN, SAMSON SO, STEPHEN G. COMPTON and RICHARD CORLETT, Biol. Rev. (2001), 76, pp. 529–572
♦ 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.
♦ 6Gibson, 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
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
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