Endangered
European ground squirrel
Spermophilus citellus
The squirrels emerge during the day to feed upon seeds, plant shoots and roots or flightless invertebrates.
Appearance
The European ground squirrel is about the size of a brown rat, with an adult measuring 20 to 23 cm (8 to 9 in) and a weight of 240 to 340 g (8.5 to 12.0 oz). The short dense fur is yellowish-grey, tinged with red, with a few indistinct pale and dark spots on the back. The underside is pale with a sandy-coloured abdomen.
The squirrels emerge during the day to feed upon seeds, plant shoots and roots or flightless invertebrates.
The European ground squirrel grows to a length of approximately 20 cm (8 in) and a weight of approximately 300 grams (11 oz). The European ground squirrel hibernates between autumn and March, the length of time depending on the climate.
Range and habitat
The European ground squirrel is native to central and southeastern Europe where its range is divided by the Carpathian Mountains. Its range includes land at altitudes of up to 2,593 metres (8,507 ft) in southern Ukraine, Asia Minor, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and north as far as Poland. The European ground squirrel has very specific habitat requirements.
In preparation they will build up reserves of brown fat during the late summer.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The European ground squirrel is a colonial animal and is mainly diurnal. Rather over half of the day was spent foraging but other activities observed included exploration, running, sitting, grooming, digging, scent marking and vigilance.
During the winter it stops up the entrances to its burrow and hibernates in a nest of dry vegetation. It is a diurnal animal, living in colonies of individual burrows in pastures or grassy embankments.
In crisis
The colonies maintain sentinels who whistle at the sight of a predator, bringing the pack scurrying back to safety.
European ground squirrel is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on European ground squirrel, Wikidata item Q623466. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
