Sciurini
| Sciurini Temporal range: Late Eocene – Recent |
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| Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Rodentia |
| Family: | Sciuridae |
| Subfamily: | Sciurinae |
| Tribe: |
Sciurini G. Fischer, 1817 |
| Type genus | |
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Sciurus Linnaeus, 1758 |
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| Genera | |
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| Diversity | |
| Five living genera and about forty species. | |
Sciurini is a tribe that includes about forty species of squirrels, mostly from the Americas. It includes five living genera—the American dwarf squirrels, Microsciurus; the Bornean Rheithrosciurus; the widespread American and Eurasian tree squirrels of the genus Sciurus, which includes some of the best known squirrel species; the Central American Syntheosciurus; and the American red squirrels, Tamiasciurus. Like other arboreal squirrels, they are sometimes referred to as tree squirrels.
The name "Sciurini" was first employed by Hermann Burmeister in 1854, who used it for the entire squirrel family. In his influential 1945 classification of mammals, George Gaylord Simpson included four genera of squirrels in Sciurini, which he recognized as one of eight tribes within the subfamily Sciurinae (including all squirrels except the flying squirrels): Sciurus, Syntheosciurus, Microsciurus, and Sciurillus. He also classified Rheithrosciurus as "?Sciurini incertae sedis" (of uncertain placement). This grouping derives from Reginald Innes Pocock, who united these squirrels in 1923 as the subfamily Sciurinae.
In 1959, Joseph Curtis Moore published a review of the interrelationships of the squirrels. His definition of Sciurini was similar to Simpson's, but he no longer considered Rheithrosciurus to be incertae sedis. He noted that the members of Sciurini were united only by the possession of a special type of baculum (penis bone). He also divided the tribe into subtribes, producing the following classification:
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