The fiery squirrel (''Sciurus flammifer'') is a

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...

in the family

Sciuridae Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squ ...

. The taxon is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the area south of the

Orinoco River The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wor ...

in the state of Bolívar,

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

Taxonomy

In 2015 de Vivo & Carmignotto reduced this taxon to a subspecies of ''Hadrosciurus igniventris''. The taxon was first described as a species in 1904 by

Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist. Career Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for the first time. He was appoin ...

. In 1914

Joel Asaph Allen Joel Asaph Allen (July 19, 1838 – August 29, 1921) was an American zoology, zoologist, mammalogy, mammalogist, and ornithology, ornithologist. He became the first president of the American Ornithologists' Union, the first curator of birds and ma ...

designated it as the type species for his new monotypic genus ''Hadrosciurus''. In 1927 Oldfield Thomas subsumed ''Hadrosciurus'' to a subgenus of ''Sciurus''. In 1928 Oldfield Thomas reduced subgenus ''Urosciurus'' into synonymy with subgenus ''Hadrosciurus'', and moved ''Urosciurus pyrrhinus'' and ''U. igniventris'' to ''Hadrosciurus''. In 1940 Ellerman moved the new additions to subgenus ''Hadrosciurus'' to subgenus ''Guerlinguetus'', returning it to monotypy. In 1959 Moore raised subgenus ''Guerlinguetus'' to the rank of genus in which he included all larger South American squirrels, and moved the monotypic subgenus ''Hadrosciurus'' from genus ''Sciurus'' to ''Guerlinguetus'', including the ''Urosciurus'' species in subgenus ''Hadrosciurus''. Cabrera (posthumously) in 1961 used Oldfield Thomas's taxonomic interpretation. Moore was not as widely followed as Cabrera. In 2005 Thorington & Hoffmann used ''Urosciurus'', mistakenly attributing Moore, although it was Patton who resurrected ''Urosciurus'' in 1984. Cranial studies by Hershkovitz in 1959 and especially Patton in 1984 give credence to splitting these squirrels from ''Sciurus''.

Description

This is a large tree squirrel up to 60 cm long from head to tail. The back is black, the hairs heavily tinged with streaks of pale yellow to orange, with orange to red limbs, an orange tail, and a white abdomen. It has conspicuous pale orange patches of fur behind the ears.

Distribution

The taxon occurs in Venezuela in the state of Bolívar south of the

. Published sources disagree regarding the precise distribution: Thorington & Hoffman state it is found south of the Orinoco from the Colombian border to

Ciudad Bolívar Ciudad Bolívar (; Spanish for "Bolivar City"), formerly known as Angostura and St. Thomas de Guyana, is the capital of Venezuela's southeastern Bolívar, Venezuela, Bolívar State. It lies at the spot where the Orinoco River narrows to about ...

at the confluence of the Río Caroní into the Orinoco (thus east of the Caroní), whereas de Vivo & Carmignotto give it south of the Orinoco and to the west of the Río Caroní to the Guyana border, to the Brazilian border at the Serra de Pacaraima. Both may be correct; specimens have been collected in the municipalities of Cedeño (Caura River near La Union, Mocho River, Suapure),

Gran Sabana La Gran Sabana (, en, The Great Savanna) is a region in southeastern Venezuela, part of the Guianan savanna ecoregion. The savanna spreads into the regions of the Guiana Highlands and south-east into Bolívar State, extending further to the bo ...

(19 Km NE Icabaru in the Pacaraima), Heres (Ciudad Bolívar), and

Sucre Sucre () is the Capital city, capital of Bolivia, the capital of the Chuquisaca Department and the List of cities in Bolivia, 6th most populated city in Bolivia. Located in the south-central part of the country, Sucre lies at an elevation of . T ...

(El Yagual).

Habitat and Behaviour

It is likely found in closed-canopy lowland rainforest, either primary old-growth woodland as well as disturbed secondary growth, in the southern part of the upper Orinoco drainage. The behaviour of this particular taxon is presumably similar to ''Hadrosciurus igniventris'' ssp. ''igniventris''; diurnal, territorial and solitary, arboreal and found at all heights from canopy to ground level, building large and well-hidden spherical nests in trees, and feeding on the large nuts of ''Attalea'' palm, as well as other tree nuts, fruit, and beetle grubs.

Similar species

The range is not sympatric with other large squirrels. ''Hadrosciurus igniventris'' ssp. ''igniventris'', which occurs to the south and east of its range and is most similar to it, is distinguished by having a red abdomen and lacking conspicuous lighter-coloured patches of fur behind the ears. ''Hadrosciurus igniventris'' ssp. ''cocalis'' has a yellowish-orange abdomen and has conspicuous orange patches behind the ears.

Conservation

Baillie writing in 1996 for the IUCN rated it as Lower Risk/least concern. In the latest assessment for the IUCN by Amori, Koprowski & Roth in 2008 the largely unknown taxon was given a Data Deficient rating, although they mention their concern due to its restricted range and the effects of deforestation.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q943933 Mammals of Venezuela Endemic fauna of Venezuela Sciurus Mammals described in 1904 Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas Taxonomy articles created by Polbot