Ground Squirrel Essay

Ground squirrels are among the most intensively studied groups of mammals (Harrison et al, 2003) and generally classic subjects for research on variations in life-history traits and population dynamics (Hoffmann, 2002; Miche ner, 1998; Oli et al, 2001). They are small- to medium-sized animals that spend much of their lives in extensive burrow systems (Nowak, 1991; O¨ zkurt et al., 2005) and are obligate hibernators during seasons with low ambient temperatures and poor foraging conditions (Armitage 1981). The genus Spermophilus of ground squirrel with 41 species (Helgen et al, 2009) is Holarctic in distribution, occurring throughout temperate and arctic Eurasia from Austria to eastern Siberia, China and Mongolia and ranging across western North …show more content…
The absence of a well-resolved and supported phylogeny has frustrated attempts to test hypotheses for the origin and evolutionary history of morphological, physiological, or behavioral traits in ground-dwelling squirrels (Dobson, 1984; Blumstein and Armitage, 1997, …show more content…
2007); and the Asia Minor Ground Squirrel, Spermophilus xanthoprymnus (Bennett,1835) that has special global conservation status in the IUCN Red List, listed as ‘Near Threatened’(IUCN, 2017). Highlighting the need for a detailed examination of the molecular variation within individual species to better understand their major subdivisions and, perhaps, to find new species (Harrison et al,2003; Herron et al, 2004) lead us to carry out studies of this sort within yellow and Asia Minor ground squirrel and here report our findings for Spermophilus in