Oriental giant squirrel

Oriental giant squirrels are cat-sized tree squirrels from the genus Ratufa in the subfamily Ratufinae. They are a distinctive element of the fauna of south and southeast Asia.

Oriental giant squirrels Temporal range: Middle Miocene to Recent
Indian giant squirrel (Ratufa indica)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Rodentia
Family:	Sciuridae
Subfamily:	Ratufinae Moore, 1959
Genus:	Ratufa J. E. Gray, 1867
Type species
Sciurus indicus Erxleben, 1777
Species
Ratufa affinis Ratufa bicolor Ratufa indica Ratufa macroura
Synonyms
Eoscuirus Rukaia

Species

There are four living species of oriental giant squirrels:

Image	Common name	Scientific name	Distribution
	Cream-coloured giant squirrel	Ratufa affinis	Thai-Malay Peninsula, Sumatra (Indonesia), Borneo (Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia)
	Black giant squirrel	Ratufa bicolor	Northern Bangladesh, northeast India, eastern Nepal, Bhutan, southern China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and western Indonesia (Java, Sumatra, Bali and nearby small islands)
	Indian giant squirrel	Ratufa indica	India.
	Grizzled giant squirrel	Ratufa macroura	Southern India, Sri Lanka

In prehistoric times this lineage was more widespread. For example, animals very similar to Ratufa and possibly belonging to this genus, at least belonging to the Ratufinae, were part of the early Langhian (Middle Miocene, some 16–15.2 million years ago) Hambach fauna of Germany.^[1]

Skeleton of a Ratufa species