Belding's ground squirrel

Belding's ground squirrel (Urocitellus beldingi), also known as the pot gut, sage rat or picket-pin, is a ground-dwelling squirrel of the mountains of the western United States. In California it is often found between about 2,000 and 3,600 m in meadows from Lake Tahoe to Kings Canyon, and its range also takes in northeastern Oregon, part of Washington, southwestern Idaho, northern and central Nevada and northwestern Utah. It is a medium-sized squirrel with gray fur shading to cinnamon underneath, a short flattened bushy tail and an average weight of about 290 g. It eats mostly flowers and seeds, feeds heavily before hibernation, and spends the cold months in burrow chambers. Females live in kin-based neighbourhoods, defend territories together and give two kinds of alarm call, a trill for ground predators and a whistle for aerial threats. Clinton Hart Merriam first described it in 1888, and the species is not of conservation concern.