The Caucasian Mountain ground squirrel (Spermophilus musicus) is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae. Its taxonomic status has been the subject of much debate, and it has at times been treated as a subspecies of the little ground squirrel. It was formerly considered endemic to the North Caucasus, but a 2024 analysis suggested that all populations of the little ground squirrel to the west of the Volga River should be included in this species.[2] According to this definition, the Caucasian ground squirrel is widespread, ranging from Dagestan to Crimea and between the Dnieper and the Volga. It is not distributed in the Kuban, and the population in the North Caucasus (the population originally referred to as Spermophilus musicus) is isolated.[2]
| Caucasian Mountain ground squirrel | |
|---|---|
| |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Rodentia |
| Family: | Sciuridae |
| Genus: | Spermophilus |
| Species: | S. musicus
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| Binomial name | |
| Spermophilus musicus Ménétries, 1832
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References
edit- ^ Kotenev, E. & Gazzard, A. (2024). "Spermophilus musicus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2024: e.T42470A22265269. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ a b Simonov, Evgeniy; Lopatina, Natalia V.; Titov, Sergey V.; Ivanova, Anastasiya D.; Brandler, Oleg V.; Surin, Vadim L.; Matrosova, Vera A.; Dvilis, Alisa E.; Oreshkova, Nataliya V.; Kapustina, Svetlana Yu.; Golenishchev, Fedor N.; Ermakov, Oleg A. (2024-06-01). "Traditional multilocus phylogeny fails to fully resolve Palearctic ground squirrels (Spermophilus) relationships but reveals a new species endemic to West Siberia". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 195: 108057. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2024.108057. ISSN 1055-7903.