Observations on the Ecology of the Tassel-Eared Squirrel

Behaviour of the bush squirrel, Paraxerus cepapi cepapi (A. Smith, 1836)

“…The mating chase, as seen in P. c. cepapi, was similarly described in American red squirrels (Smith, 1968), grey squirrels (Taylor, 1966), tassel-eared squirrels (Farentinos, 1972) and Northern palm squirrels (Purohit et al, 1966). Vocalization by the 9 to attract the <J is the most prominent feature of bush squirrel mating and similar though apparently not as obvious, vocalization features in the grey and Northern palm squirrel mating behaviour.…”

“…Dominance between sexes varies in the different species of tree squirrels : in tassel-eared squirrels, S. aberti ferreus, Farentinos (1972) found that c?c? dominated $$ and never vice versa, although $$ could be dominant over other <j>$; in grey squirrels <J<} were found to dominate $$ (Flyger, 1955) and further studies by Taylor (1966) and Pack, Mosby and Siegel (1967) determined the existence of a dominance hierarchy involving both sexes, in such a way that the dominant <J takes precedence over all $$ and the dominant $ only over <J<J low in the social order.…”

“…Eisenberg (1966, in Farentinos, 1972 mentioned that grey squirrels, and European and American red squirrels all remained solitary as adults except for a short Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/1/15 6:02 PM paring period in the mating season, and there was lack of any obvious territorial behaviour. Flyger (1955) made similar observations on grey squirrels, and tassel-eared squirrels (Farentinos, 1972α) also tended to be relatively nongregarious during the non-mating season although loosely cohesive subunits of the population lived with overlapping home ranges and no obvious territoriality was seen.…”

The Use of "Clippings" to Index Tassel-Eared Squirrel Population Levels

“…Although it is known that populations fluctuate, census techniques have not been developed to index squirrel population levels other than capturerecapture methods (Farentinos 1972) and measuring hunting success (Stephenson and Brown 1980 Several techniques to census tasseleared squirrels have been attempted in Arizona, including a modified strip census (Hayne 1949), time-area counts (Flyger 1959), population indices based on the ratio of marked to unmarked animals (Kufeld, unpubl. rep., Arizona Game and Fish Dep., Fed.…”

“…LITERATURE CITED ANDERSON, E. A. 1976 (Rasmussen 1941, Keith 1965, Farentinos 1972, Patton 1975. These squirrels are game animals in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Mexico.…”