Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Sciuridae > Spermophilus > Spermophilus fulvus

Spermophilus fulvus (yellow ground squirrel)

Synonyms: Arctomys fulvus (homotypic); Citellus fulvus

Wikipedia Abstract

The yellow ground squirrel (Spermophilus fulvus) is a large and sturdy species of ground squirrel with naked soles on the hind feet(excluding the heels). It is found in Afghanistan, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Russia and on sandy steppes with Artemisia,glasswort and tamarisk. Is replaced by other ground squirrels in farmland and grassland.It is strictly diurnal and forages mainly in the morning when the vegetation is still damp. lives a very gregarious lifestyle in large colonies. Diet includes bulbs, seeds, stems and leaves.Like many other ground squirrels it hibernates, but it may also aestivate.
View Wikipedia Record: Spermophilus fulvus

Infraspecies

Spermophilus fulvus fulvus
Spermophilus fulvus hypoleucos
Spermophilus fulvus oxianus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
1
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
12
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 3.59
EDGE Score: 1.52
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  1.314 lbs (596 g)
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Granivore, Herbivore
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  20 %
Diet - Plants [2]  40 %
Diet - Seeds [2]  40 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Gestation [3]  30 days
Litter Size [3]  6
Litters / Year [3]  1
Snout to Vent Length [3]  16 inches (41 cm)

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Kaplankyr Zapovednik State Nature Reserve Ia 1293994 Turkmenistan  
Repetek Biosphere Reserve 102089 Turkmenistan  

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Caucasus Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Russia, Turkey No
Irano-Anatolian Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Turkmenistan No
Mountains of Central Asia Afghanistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan No

Predators

Aquila heliaca (Eastern Imperial Eagle)[4]
Vulpes corsac (Corsac Fox)[5]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

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
♦ 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
♦ 4Relationship between demographics and diet specificity of Imperial Eagles Aquila heliaca in Kazakhstan, TODD E. KATZNER, EVGENY A. BRAGIN, STEVEN T. KNICK & ANDREW T. SMITH, Ibis (2005), 147, 576–586
♦ 55.5 Corsac, Vulpes corsac, A. Poyarkov and N. Ovsyanikov, Sillero-Zubiri, C., Hoffmann, M. and Macdonald, D.W. (eds). 2004. Canids: Foxes, Wolves, Jackals and Dogs. Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. x + 430 pp.
♦ 6International Flea Database
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