Guayaquil squirrel

The Guayaquil squirrel, Sciurus stramineus, is a tree squirrel native to southwestern Ecuador and northwestern Peru, where it lives on the western slopes of the Andes and along the Gulf of Guayaquil at elevations from about 300 to 2,000 metres. It is a robust rodent weighing roughly 470 grams, with a head and body length of 18 to 32 centimetres and a tail of similar length. Its scientific name means straw-coloured squirrel, yet its coat varies a good deal: a paler morph common in Peru has grizzled grey fur, a buff rump and a pale patch on the neck, while a darker morph in the Ecuadorian lowlands has grey forequarters and dull orange hindquarters, and a rarer melanistic morph is almost entirely black. All morphs have black ears and a slender grey tail. The species is diurnal and arboreal, building round nests of woven sticks high in trees, and it feeds mostly on seeds, with flowers, fungi, other plant material and some insects added. It tolerates coffee plantations and cities, and a small population was introduced to parks in Lima. The IUCN rates it Least Concern.