Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Sciuridae > Xerus > Xerus inaurisXerus inauris (South African ground squirrel)Synonyms: Geosciurus inauris; Myoxus africanus; Myoxus inauris (homotypic); Sciurus capensis; Sciurus inauris; Xerus capensis The Cape ground squirrel (Xerus inauris) is found in most of the drier parts of southern Africa from South Africa, through to Botswana, and into Namibia. The name Cape ground squirrel is somewhat misleading as it actually has a much wider area of habitation. This common name may have been arrived at to distinguish it from a tree squirrel (the Eastern Grey Squirrel) found around Cape Town, which was imported from Europe by Cecil John Rhodes. |
Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) Unique (100) Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) Unique & Vulnerable (100) ED Score: 13.2 EDGE Score: 2.65 |
| Adult Weight [1] | 1.162 lbs (527 g) | | Birth Weight [2] | 20 grams |  | | Diet [3] | Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates), Frugivore, Granivore, Herbivore | | Diet - Fruit [3] | 20 % | | Diet - Invertibrates [3] | 10 % | | Diet - Plants [3] | 20 % | | Diet - Seeds [3] | 30 % | | Diet - Vertibrates [3] | 20 % | | Forages - Ground [3] | 100 % | | | Female Maturity [2] | 1 year | | Male Maturity [2] | 1 year | | | Gestation [2] | 45 days | | Litter Size [2] | 2 | | Litters / Year [2] | 1 | | Maximum Longevity [2] | 12 years | | Snout to Vent Length [1] | 14 inches (36 cm) | | Weaning [2] | 50 days |
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| Name |
Countries |
Ecozone |
Biome |
Species |
Report |
Climate |
Land
Use |
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Angolan Mopane woodlands |
Angola, Namibia |
Afrotropic |
Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands |
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Drakensberg alti-montane grasslands and woodlands |
South Africa |
Afrotropic |
Montane Grasslands and Shrublands |
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Drakensberg montane grasslands, woodlands and forests |
South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho |
Afrotropic |
Montane Grasslands and Shrublands |
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Highveld grasslands |
South Africa |
Afrotropic |
Montane Grasslands and Shrublands |
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Kalahari Acacia-Baikiaea woodlands |
Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa |
Afrotropic |
Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands |
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Kalahari xeric savanna |
Botswana, Namibia, South Africa |
Afrotropic |
Deserts and Xeric Shrublands |
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Nama Karoo |
Namibia, South Africa |
Afrotropic |
Deserts and Xeric Shrublands |
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Namibian savanna woodlands |
Angola, Namibia |
Afrotropic |
Deserts and Xeric Shrublands |
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Attributes / relations provided by ♦ 1Nathan 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 ♦ 2de 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 ♦ 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 ♦ 4Jorrit 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. ♦ 5Seasonal diet and numbers of prey consumed by Cape foxes Vulpes chama in South Africa, Unn Klare, Jan F. Kamler and David W. Macdonald, Wildlife Biology 20(3):190-195. 2014 ♦ 6International Flea DatabaseEcoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database |
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
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