Tamias

Tamias is a genus of chipmunks in the tribe Marmotini of the squirrel family. The genus includes a single living species, the eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus).^[1] The genus name Tamias (Greek: ταμίας) means "treasurer", "steward", or "housekeeper",^[2] which is a reference to the animals' role in plant dispersal through their habit of collecting and storing food for winter use.^[3]

Caged Tamias chipmunk, Tokyo area

Tamias
Eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Rodentia
Family:	Sciuridae
Subtribe:	Tamiina
Genus:	Tamias Illiger, 1811
Type species
Sciurus striatus Linnaeus, 1758
Species
Tamias striatus

The genus Tamias was formerly divided into three subgenera that, in sum, included all chipmunk species: Tamias, the eastern chipmunk and other fossil species; Eutamias, of which the Siberian chipmunk (E. sibiricus) is the only living member; and Neotamias, which includes the 23 remaining, mostly western, species. These classifications are subjective, and most taxonomies over the twentieth century have placed the chipmunks in a single genus. However, studies of mitochondrial DNA show that the divergence between each of the three chipmunk groups is comparable to the genetic dissimilarity between Marmota and Spermophilus,^[4][5][6][7] so they are now often considered as separate genera.

In addition to the eastern chipmunk, some fossil species from Eurasia have been assigned to this genus:

• †Tamias allobrogensis; Mein and Ginsburg, 2002 – Miocene of France^[8]
• †Tamias anatoliensis; Bosma et al., 2013 – Miocene of Turkey^[9]
• †Tamias atsali; De Bruijn, 1995 – Pliocene of Greece^[10]
• †Tamias eviensis; De Bruijn et al., 1980 – Miocene of Greece^[11]
• †Tamias urialis; Munthe, 1980, described from the Miocene of Pakistan, may be more closely related to Tamiops.^[12]

One American fossil species, †Tamias aristus from the late Pleistocene, has been identified.^[13]