Franklin's ground squirrel

Franklin's ground squirrel (Poliocitellus franklinii) is a North American ground squirrel and the only member of its genus, Poliocitellus. Joseph Sabine described it in 1822 and named it for the Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin. It was once placed in the large genus Spermophilus, but DNA sequencing showed that genus to be paraphyletic, so the species now stands in a genus of its own, suggested to be a sister of a group that includes the prairie dogs. Adults measure about 36 to 41 centimetres in total length including a short, dark tail, with speckled brownish-grey fur, yellowish-white underparts and a grey head, and males grow far heavier than females by autumn. It lives in tallgrass prairie with dense cover, often along the edge of woodland or marsh, from central Alberta and southern Manitoba south through the northern Great Plains to northern Kansas and northwestern Indiana. The squirrel is omnivorous and active by day, shelters in burrows, and hibernates from about August to April. Its numbers have dwindled as prairie has been destroyed and fragmented.