Sciurus yucatanensisYucatan squirrel

Geographic Range

The Yucatan, Tabasco, and Eastern Chiapas in Mexico, and northern Guatemala.

Physical Description

Reproduction

Breeding takes place in April and May. Litters range from 2-5 individuals.

  • Key Reproductive Features
  • gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
  • sexual

Behavior

This rodent is nocturnal and very timid. Little else is known about the behaviour of this organism.

Communication and Perception

Food Habits

Unknown

Conservation Status

Contributors

Bret Weinstein (author), University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Glossary

Neotropical

living in the southern part of the New World. In other words, Central and South America.

World Map

bilateral symmetry

having body symmetry such that the animal can be divided in one plane into two mirror-image halves. Animals with bilateral symmetry have dorsal and ventral sides, as well as anterior and posterior ends. Synapomorphy of the Bilateria.

chemical

uses smells or other chemicals to communicate

endothermic

animals that use metabolically generated heat to regulate body temperature independently of ambient temperature. Endothermy is a synapomorphy of the Mammalia, although it may have arisen in a (now extinct) synapsid ancestor; the fossil record does not distinguish these possibilities. Convergent in birds.

motile

having the capacity to move from one place to another.

native range

the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.

sexual

reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female

tactile

uses touch to communicate

References

Mammalian Species #506

Walker's Mammals of the World, fifth edition; Nowak, R. ed.; 1991; Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 580-583