Urocitellus elegans

The Wyoming ground squirrel is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae. It is endemic to the mountain west of the United States.

Urocitellus elegans

JTchagbele · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
Also called
Wyoming ground squirrelPBDB
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 most 1.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 1.4 Mya and 210 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 6 of 6 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 6 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.3–1.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.1–1.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.0–950 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences950 ka–887 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences887 ka–823 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences823 ka–760 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences760 ka–697 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences697 ka–633 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences633 ka–570 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences570 ka–507 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences507 ka–443 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences443 ka–380 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences380 ka–317 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences317 ka–253 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences253 ka–190 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.9 Mya0 Mya

6 occurrences of Urocitellus elegans on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

6 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

1 formation

Loveland Loess — 40.50°N, 98.10°W

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The named rock units Urocitellus elegans has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Urocitellus elegans and its relatives

Pleistocene

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

Found in the same rock

82 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Urocitellus elegans, 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

3 references

Each of the 6 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. 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 content2

Picture of Urocitellus elegans

Credit
JTchagbele
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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. (Kennicott 1863)