Talk:American red squirrel

Etymology

The definition given for the name Tamiasciurus is somewhat fanciful: “the steward who sits in the shadow of his tail.” The Greek "tamia" can be variously translated as "keeper" or "treasurer," and "steward" is also within reason. Latin "sciurus" comes from Greak "skia-ouros," which means "shadow-tail." However, "sciurus" was already in use by everyday Romans in classical times, and only educated speakers of Greek among those Romans would have known that that name meant "shadow-tail." Tamiasciurus is known for hoarding large quantities of pine cones in middens, which may poetically considered to be the squirrel's "treasury." A more reasonable interpretation of Erxleben's intent in bestowing the name Tamiasciurus is "hoarder squirrel." - Rod Thompson, Hilo, Hawaii

I expect it is Tamias + Sciurus. 17:32, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Kluane

The content of this page is almost identical to one of the pages on the Kluane website linked in the references. It looks as though someone has done a rip off, and though it could have gone in either direction., my guess is that we have a copyvio here. The Kluane material was added by an anon. Any ideas anyone? seglea 02:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see that the last of the major edits were made by a user called user:Amacadam, which is actually the name of one of the people working on the Kluane website, so it is probably ok. seglea 03:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Common name capitalization

Dger on September 21, 2009 made a number of minor changes to the article, mostly to capitalize the common names of the animals mentioned in the article. It appears that the capitalization changes are counter to Wikipedia policy on the capitalization of common names:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_%28fauna%29#Capitalisation_of_common_names_of_species

"In general, common (vernacular) names of flora and fauna should be written in lower case — for example, "oak" or "lion". There are a limited number of exceptions to this:"

The only listed exception that seems to apply is that when the common name contains a proper noun, the proper noun should be capitalized.

So it appears that the common name of Tamiasciurus hudsonicus should be written American red squirrel and most of Dger's capitalization edits should be reverted. Davefoc (talk) 03:28, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

This gets debated to death in WP:MAM. Mammals may be an exception based on "3. For specific groups of organisms, there are specific rules of capitalisation based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms. These should ordinarily be followed:". --Aranae (talk) 04:01, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It does seem to be a contentious issue, but I think in this case the capitalization should be reverted to the original.

As to your point that current or historic usage might favor "American Red Squirrel" I found somewhat more examples for "American red squirrel" than "American Red Squirrel" although one of the best informal sites about squirrels on the web, the Smithsonian site, used "Red Squirrels".

From this section http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MAM#Capitalization of WP:MAM

"The issue of the capitalization of the common names of mammal species is unresolved on Wikipedia and our pages are inconsistent. A large majority of reliable sources do not capitalize and thus there is a strong descriptive argument against doing so. ..."

And

• Respect the original or primary authors; do not up and change something without notification, as you may be reverted.
• The form chosen should be used consistently across an article

The first sentence says roughly that the argument for lower case is strong while not comprehensive. That sounds to me that in the absence of other arguments lower case should be used.

Respecting the original or primary authors (the first bullet point) also argues that the lower case should remain in this article. It was in lower case so in the absence of other arguments that should be respected.

The second bullet point is where there is something of an argument. The name of the article is "American Red Squirrel", so I suppose the argument there would be that to make the article consistent with the title the capitalization needed to be changed. My own cut at this is that the title was capitalized as the result of using the style that capitalizes the first letter of every word in a title. This no longer seems to be standard style in Wikipedia or the US in general. I don't know about other countries.

At any rate, I think the capitalization should be reverted and the title change to "American red squirrel". However, I'm not going to do that without some kind of consensus that it should be done. As an aside on the title, the Wikipedia decision to use common names for at least some animals was probably the wrong one. It has led to a variety of unnecessary issues. So I would use the scientific name for the article but I don't propose to fight that issue.Davefoc (talk) 07:41, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Article feedback is being monitored

The feedback on wildlife articles has legitimate requests from casual users who want to know more... please don't disable it. Krushia (talk) 14:26, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Competition vs Grey Squirrel?

A fellow I met from Toronto claimed that Red Squirrels in that city were extremely aggressive and were becoming a pest. Yet, the similar Douglas Squirrel has traditionally been losing ground to Grey Squirrels in the West and it doesn't make sense that the reverse was happening in the East. I was hoping to find an answer here but found no reference to the whole question of this squirrels survival/decline. I think this is an important issue, especially the competition with the Grey Squirrel.

Answers please? --67.49.245.122 (talk) 00:47, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I have seen this in Western and Eastern Michigan. The reds arrived sometime around the year 2000 (I think, I don't live there, I visit relatives) and they are very aggressive and keep greys away from the feeders.Jeffkw (talk) 00:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I've observed quite the opposite in northern Minnesota, where the species have coexisted for some time. I wonder if anyone's studied this scientifically or even published about it though… —innotata 00:12, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Range

Range: these squirrels are also extremely common in Alaska, even including the Pacific coast of Alaska. The main article makes it sound as if they do not live in Alaska, at least not on the coast. Here is an article that shows their range: http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=redsquirrel.main Shhallinan (talk) 08:46, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

I added a brief mention and a range map. Thanks for pointing this out. —innotata 00:12, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

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Range (2)

I don't buy the unsourced claim that red squirrels aren't found in the southeastern states except in the Blue Ridge mountains, "as conifer trees are not common in those areas." As anyone who has driven across the piedmont and coastal plains of the American southeast can testify, pine forests cover a large percentage of the whole region. Look at the map at https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/rastergateway/forest_type/FIA_conusFTG.pdf and see how much of the southeast falls in the "Longleaf - Slash Pine" and "Loblolly - Shortleaf Pine" regions! Whatever may be the reason for the lack of red squirrels there, it's not the absence of conifers. I'd propose deleting the "...as conifer trees..." portion of that sentence. 137.83.219.6 (talk) 15:14, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I moved your comment to a new section, you had added it to a discussion that has been stale for 7 years. I just removed that entire sentence from the lede instead. The article already describes their range pretty well, I think we don't really need to describe what is not their range, and I agree that the bit about absence of conifers seems speculative. Ivanvector's squirrel (^trees/_nuts) 17:15, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Sociality & Territoriality

I have added a small blurb about the asocial behaviour of the red squirrels as I wasn't certain if it would fit well in any of the pre-existing sections. More information on the territorial behaviour of the red squirrels could possibly be added as well. Merry Goblin (talk) 17:35, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: California Natural History

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2022 and 2 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Roseviolet89 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Roseviolet89 (talk) 18:22, 29 September 2022 (UTC)