Squirrel ID Help

[tsuru]

I am a wildlife photographer and have just returned from Thailand (and Hong Kong and Japan) and had photographed at least 5 species of squirrel. I had seen a book while there and had taken some quick photos of the pages of squirrels / small mammals so I could use that once home to ID the images I got. HOwever, I'm probably only positive on a couple of them and for sure need help on at least three others. Currently I'm adding images to my site (below) and the squirrel images are at this one web page with preliminary IDs on them. Any help or suggestions of either species or where to find information for ID would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Webpage: http://www.tsuru-bird.net/thailand3.html

[Hannah]

Hi, tsuru.

Amazing pictures.

It can be hard finding info for overseas squirrels. The only thing I can say is the shrew faced squirrel looks to me like an actual tree shrew (proper tree shrews aren't rodents, and have more teeth), but that's only a guess.

Best of luck with your ID's, tsuru. :wave123

[Rhapsody]

Beautiful Pictures...... Thanks for Sharing - I loved them. :thumbsup

[muffinsquirrel]

You've really got some wonderful photographs on your site - I will have to go bck and look more at a more decent hour! I do, however, disagree with your Northern Flyer. The lack of gliding membrane and the fullness of the tail looks more like a Red Squirrel to me. But I could well be wrong - I am more familiar with Southern Flyers.

muffinsquirrel

[dblcit]

I took a look at the pictures and I agree with Peter, the Shrew-faced Ground Squirrel is actually a Common Treeshrew (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Treeshrew). Note the different teeth and much smaller whiskers.

I am pretty sure what you call a Horse-tailed Squirrel is another Golden-backed Squirrel (http://www.worldwildlifeimages.com/mammals/v/Rodentia/Sciuridae/Callosciurus+caniceps+_Thailand+Golden-backed+Squirrel_+Adult_0151+_c_+Roger+_amp_+Liz+Ch arlwood+_WorldWildlifeImages_com_.jpg.html?g2_imag eViewsIndex=1).

The other identifications look correct.

It is interesting that Tree Shrews are given their own order (Scandentia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treeshrew)) midway between primates and rodents and they all belong to the Superorder Euarchontoglires (maybe that is why we find squirrels to be so cute :D ).

By the way, that is a great set of photos! You must have had a lot of fun photographing them.

Daniel Lang

[tsuru]

Thanks Daniel for the feedback. I've updated the images for the 'squirrel' to Common Treeshrew. Funny, as I was photographing it I kept thinking this 'squirrel' sure has the characteristics of a Shrew, but since I'm not much up on some of the smaller mammals, especially south-east Asia, I looked it up by comparing googled images and 'assumed' it was a Shrew-faced Ground Squirrel only because I first made the mistake of "ass-u-ming"! it was a squirrel!!! So appreciate that. If you go to my webpage if image list:
http://www.tsuru-bird.net/image.htm
and go towards the bottom you'll find the "Mammal" section. You might want to look at what I have on the site (I've photographed a ton of stuff over the last 36 years that I've not scanned the gazillion 35mm slides from and placed on the site) and you can look and give me some insight into anything that might be mis-identified. One person posted that my "flying squirrel" may only be a Red Squirrel (which actually I had thought it was when I photographed it but then got looking at it and thought maybe a flying squirrel) so not absolutley positive.

Again, thx so much for yours and all the others help here!!!


Cheers,
Monte Taylor
http://www.tsuru-bird.net

[Hannah]

One person posted that my "flying squirrel" may only be a Red Squirrel (which actually I had thought it was when I photographed it but then got looking at it and thought maybe a flying squirrel) so not absolutely positive.
Yup, that's a red squirrel.

I just read your bio -- wow 90,000 pictures. That's a lot just to keep organized, let alone photograph. Best of luck, tsuru.

[madtowntom]

Monte - how many hours do you think you have logged photographing wildlife? Your website is incredible - you could spend days there!

[Rescue04]

wow...i love the pics!! i found a new website to get lost on!! thanks for sharing!!