Description: English: Spermophilus richardsonii (Sabine, 1822) - fossil ground squirrel skeleton from the Pleistocene of Nebraska, USA. (Nebraska State Museum of Natural History, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA) This species is also known as Urocitellus richardsonii. From museum signage: "Ice Age ground squirrel which died in its burrow Dundy County 10,500 years old (Pleistocene) This is one of the youngest fossils in our collection. To be considered a fossil, a specimen must be at least 10,000 years old. Carbon-14 dates on this specimen barely exceed this. The skeleton is similar to that of living Richardson's ground squirrels living in the Rocky Mountains and northern Great Plains today. " Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Mammalia, Rodentia, Sciuridae Locality: unrecorded/undisclosed site in Dundy County, southwestern Nebraska, USA See info. at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson's_ground_squirrel. Date: 18 July 2011, 13:26:10. Source:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/31566450184/. Author: James St. John.
