Gambian sun squirrel | |
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Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Rodentia |
Family: | Sciuridae |
Genus: | Heliosciurus |
Species: | H. gambianus |
Binomial name | |
Heliosciurus gambianus (Ogilby, 1835) |
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Subspecies | |
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The Gambian sun squirrel (Heliosciurus gambianus) is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae. It is found in Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia. Its natural habitat is wooded savanna.
The Gambian sun squirrel was first described by the Irish naturalist William Ogilby in 1835 as Sciurus gambianus. It was designated the type species of the genus Sciurus after the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature decided to suppress the use of the Sciurus annulatus for this purpose in 1957. The species was later reallocated to the genus Heliosciurus. It is probably a species complex of several described species.