Mutable sun squirrel

The mutable sun squirrel, Heliosciurus mutabilis, is a large squirrel of East and southern Africa, found from Tanzania south to southern Mozambique and west to the Chimanimani Highlands of Zimbabwe, south-central Zambia and Malawi. Animal Diversity Web reports a body mass of 250 to 340 grams and a body length of about 212 to 250 millimetres. Its banded agouti hairs change colour with age and between molts, fading from blackish brown and whitish ochre toward a light reddish ochre, and the name refers to its habit of lying in the sun on tree limbs. It lives in lowland evergreen forest, riverine thicket, Brachystegia and Julbernardia woodland, moist savanna and grassland, nesting in tree holes or dense clumps of vines. Active in the morning and evening, it is arboreal and omnivorous, eating seeds, nuts, fruit, insects and bird eggs. The IUCN lists it as Least Concern.