What is the scientific name of Richardsons ground squirrels?
The original scientific name given to the Richardson’s ground squirrel by Jospeh Sabine in 1822 was Arctomys richardsonii. In the 1800s the science of taxonomy was in its early stages and methods of communication were very slow, which resulted in two scientists independently renaming Richardson’s ground squirrels as Citellus richardsonii and Spermophilus richardsonii with the latter becoming the accepted scientific name until 2009 when a major taxonomic revision of the genus Spermophilus resulted in reclassification of all the North American ground squirrels into six other genera (Helgen at al. 2009, Journal of Mammalogy vol. 90 pp. 270-305). Richardson’s ground squirrels are now placed in the genus Urocitellus; their specific epithet is unchanged, so the Latinized scientific name is now Urocitellus richardsonii.
