Atlantoxerus

Atlantoxerus is a monotypic genus of rodent in the squirrel family Sciuridae, containing a single species, the Barbary ground squirrel. It is endemic to the Atlas mountains of Morocco and parts of Algeria, and has been introduced to the Canary Islands. It is a small species growing to a length of 160 to 220 millimeters with a bushy tail of similar length, marked with a white stripe along each side and sometimes another along the spine, a paler grey belly, and a tail barred longitudinally in black and grey. It occupies subtropical or tropical dry shrubland, temperate grassland and rocky areas, living colonially in burrows, and was first described by Carl Linnaeus in the 1758 tenth edition of Systema Naturae.