Heliosciurus Trouessart, 1880

Thomas, Howard H, Best, Troy L & Agwanda, Bernard, 2019, Heliosciurus rufobrachium (Rodentia: Sciuridae), Mammalian Species 51 (978), pp. 61-69 : 61-62

Heliosciurus Trouessart, 1880

Heliosciurus Trouessart, 1880:292 . Type species Sciurus gambianus Ogilby,1835:103 , designated by Opinion 464of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (1957) in which Sciurus annulatus Desmarest, 1822:338 was suppressed.

CONTEXT AND CONTENT. Order Rodentia , suborder Sciuromorpha , family Sciuridae , subfamily Xerinae , tribe Protoxerini . The genus Heliosciurus currently contains six species: Heliosciurus gambianus , H. mutabilis , H. punctatus , H. rufobrachium , H. ruwenzorii , and H. undulatus ( Thorington and Hoffmann 2005) . The generic name is derived from a combination of two Greek words, helios meaning sun and skioura, which is a compound of the Greek words skia (shade) and oura (tail), implying that its tail is held upright as a sunshade ( Rosevear 1969). The following identification key for the species is based on that published by Monadjem et al. (2015):

1. Red or reddish-brown on limbs, contrasting with duller dorsal pelage............................................. H. rufobrachium Limbs not red and not contrasting with dorsal pelage.......... 2

2. Conspicuous mid-ventral white stripes (flanked by cream or gray ventral pelage) ....................................... H. ruwenzorii

No mid-ventral white stripe (although ventral pelage may be white) .................................................................................3

3. Dorsal pelage rich brown, or rufous brown; restricted to southern Africa ................................................ H. mutabilis

Dorsal pelage duller, usually gray or gray-brown; marginally present in southern Africa.................................................. 4

4. Larger (greatest length of skull> 51 mm); restricted to eastern regions of Kenya and Tanzania.......... H. undulatus

Smaller (greatest length of skull <51 mm); absent from eastern regions of East Africa ............................................ 5

5. Dorsal pelage paler gray; occurs in savannas......................... ...................................................................... H. gambianus

Dorsal pelage darker brown-gray; occurs in forests............... ........................................................................ H. punctatus