Spermophilus tridecemlineatus
The thirteen-lined ground squirrel, also known as the striped gopher, leopard ground squirrel, and squinny, is a species of hibernating ground squirrel that is widely distributed over grasslands and prairies of North America.

USFWS Midwest Region · Public Domain · 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- Also called
- thirteen-lined ground squirrelPBDB
- Sits inside
- SpermophilusPBDB
- Diet
- granivore, frugivorePBDB, for Sciuridae
- Life habit
- semifossorialPBDB, for Spermophilus
- 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 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
44 occurrences of Spermophilus tridecemlineatus 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
44 occurrences- Pleistocene99%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
- Kingsdown Formation4
- Alamosa Formation3
- Sappa Formation2
- Crooked Creek Formation2
- McPherson Formation2
- Tule Formation1
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The named rock units Spermophilus tridecemlineatus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 29 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Spermophilus tridecemlineatus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Spermophilus tridecemlineatus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
591 taxa- Microtus pennsylvanicus20 sites
- Peromyscus18 sites
- Sorex cinereus18 sites
- Blarina brevicauda17 sites
- Neotoma floridana17 sites
- Clethrionomys gapperi15 sites
- Marmota monax15 sites
- Ondatra zibethicus15 sites
- Sylvilagus15 sites
- Synaptomys cooperi15 sites
- Eptesicus fuscus14 sites
- Equus14 sites
- Microtus chrotorrhinus14 sites
- Sorex14 sites
- Tamiasciurus hudsonicus14 sites
- Glaucomys volans13 sites
- Microtus13 sites
- Tamias striatus13 sites
- Erethizon dorsatum12 sites
- Microtus pinetorum12 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus12 sites
- Phenacomys intermedius12 sites
- Camelops11 sites
- Castor canadensis11 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 44 sites for Spermophilus tridecemlineatus, 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
23 references- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals10
- Geologic history, stratigraphy, and paleontology of SAM Cave, north-central New Mexico5
- Quaternary vertebrate localities of Virginia and their avian and mammalian fauna3
- Middle Pleistocene (late Irvingtonian: Nebraskan) climatic changes in south-central Colorado3
- Ecological Significance of Displaced Boreal Mammals in West Virginia Caves3
- Paleontology and historic field trip of the John Guilday Cave Preserve (Trout Rock)2
- Dalquest and Schultz, 19922
- Fossil Mammals From Island Ford Cave, Virginia, USA1
- Melrose Caverns: A Late Pleistocene Vertebrate Locality in Virginia, U.S.A.1
- Mammals of the Elm Creek Local Fauna, Late Pleistocene of Beaver County, Oklahoma1
- Chandler and Martin, 19881
- Environmental interpretations of the "disharmonius" late Wisconsinan biome of southeastern North America1
Each of the 44 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. 11 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 Spermophilus tridecemlineatus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- USFWS Midwest Region
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Spermophilus tridecemlineatus 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 itSpermophilus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Mitchell 1821)