Sanborn's squirrel (''Sciurus sanborni'') is or was a little known
tree squirrel
Tree squirrels are the members of the squirrel Family (biology), family (Sciuridae) commonly just referred to as "squirrels". They include more than 100 arboreal species native to all continents except Antarctica and Oceania.
They do not form a ...
described in 1944 from the skin and skeleton of a single female specimen collected in Peru in 1941.
Subsequently, over the proceeding years only a handful of either specimens were collected, or observations were recorded, in the regions of
Madre de Dios and northern
Puno in
Peru
Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...
, and
Pando department in
Bolivia
Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...
(single sighting, Conservation International, 1992).
The 2019 IUCN assessment describes it as
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...
to Peru.
In 2015 this taxon was synonymised with
''Notosciurus pucheranii'' ssp. ''boliviensis''.
Its
habitat
In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...
is
tropical dry broadleaf forests at elevations up to 570 m.
It is considered possibly rare and potentially vulnerable to
deforestation
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. Ab ...
, but its population trend is not established.
References
Sciurus
Mammals of Peru
Mammals described in 1944
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
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