Urocitellus richardsonii

Richardson's ground squirrel, also known as the dakrat or flickertail, is a North American ground squirrel in the genus Urocitellus. Like a number of other ground squirrels, they are sometimes called prairie dogs or gophers, though the latter name belongs more strictly to the pocket gophers of family Geomyidae, and the former to members of the genus Cynomys.

Urocitellus richardsonii

Charles J. Sharp · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
UrocitellusPBDB
Diet
granivore, frugivorePBDB, for Sciuridae
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Sciuridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 81 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 210 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 4.7 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Pliocene — about 0 of 24 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 24 of 24 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 24 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.3–4.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.2–4.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.0–3.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.8–3.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.6–3.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.5–3.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.1–2.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.9–2.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.8–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.3–2.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.1–1.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.9–1.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.6–1.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.2–1.0 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.0–867 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences867 ka–693 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences693 ka–520 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences520 ka–347 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences347 ka–173 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences173 ka–0 Mya — about 6 occurrences210 ka – 129 ka5.2 Mya0 Mya

24 occurrences of Urocitellus richardsonii on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

24 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

7 formations

Crooked Creek — 37.20°N, 100.30°WCrooked Creek — 39.00°N, 98.20°WMcPherson — 38.30°N, 97.60°WSappa — 39.80°N, 98.10°WSappa — 40.20°N, 99.40°WAlamosa — 37.37°N, 105.75°WKingsdown — 37.04°N, 100.50°W"Meade" — 38.90°N, 98.80°WFloral — 52.20°N, 106.70°W

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The named rock units Urocitellus richardsonii has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Urocitellus richardsonii and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Urocitellus richardsonii and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

237 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Urocitellus richardsonii, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

14 references

Each of the 24 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 2 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Urocitellus richardsonii

Credit
Charles J. Sharp
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Urocitellus richardsonii was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itUrocitellus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Sabine 1822)