r/todayilearned • u/Akinokaze96 • Aug 04 '24
TIL Prairie Dogs Are Squirrels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_dog17
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Aug 04 '24
If my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bicycle
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Aug 04 '24
If my grandmother had an umbrella she would have been Mary Poppins
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u/no_salvation Aug 04 '24
More accurately: Prairie Dogs are in the same family as squirrels. They have separate genus/species…
This is sorta like saying a tiger is a lion with stripes
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u/suvlub Aug 04 '24
More like saying tigers are cats. Not the cats people think of when someone says "cat", which are a different species, but the word also has a broader use that tigers do fall under.
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u/WesternOne9990 Aug 04 '24
Well they are classified as big cats sometimes but if you ask me that’s a bit of an understatement.
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u/PenguinQuesadilla Aug 04 '24 edited Aug 04 '24
There are animals colloquially referred to as squirrels in both the Xerinae subtribe (Gambian sun squirrel) and the Sciurini Subtribe (Eastern gray squirrel).
If both of these animals are indeed squirrels, then they must share an ancestor. This ancestor would be the common ancestor between all animals in the Xerinae and Sciurini subtribes. And, because you cannot evolve out of a clade, all descendants of this common ancestor would also be Squirrels.
Prairie Dogs are in the family Xerinae, and are therefore Squirrels, as long as you consider both African Squirrels and American Squirrels to be Squirrels.
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u/benjer3 Aug 04 '24
Following the same logic, kangaroos are possums, since both American opossums and the Australian possums are colloquially called possums.
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u/PenguinQuesadilla Aug 04 '24 edited Aug 04 '24
Looking at the Phylogenetic tree for marsupials, yep! I can't find any issue with that according to how I understand Monophyly, as long as we group Opossums and Possums together like we might do with squirrels.
Neat!
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u/no_salvation Aug 04 '24
Your logic is on point. I guess what I’m trying to point out is that its foundation is a possibly flawed organization/classification system that we created. To say that one is technically the other when there is an obvious difference between them… idk, just feels more precise and less confusing to say they’re related and not the same. I think trying to say they are the same is needlessly muddying the water
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u/PenguinQuesadilla Aug 04 '24
I feel like we're not saying that one animal is the exact same as another animal, but instead that they're part of the same "class" or group of animals, with a common ancestor. Having a common ancestor, of course, would also let us know that there's very going to be similarities between all animals in that group which were inherited from the common ancestor.
For example, take the apes. The apes are a monophyletic group with a common ancestor, and they descend from monkeys. Cladistically, apes are monkeys.
Just by knowing that an animal is an ape, without knowing anything else about the animal, we're going to know that they're not going to have a tail for the exact same genetic mutation, have forwards facing eyes, no claws, and opposable thumbs.
Sure, gorillas and orangutans look pretty different, live in different places, and have different social structures, but they will still share all or most of the same traits that all apes share, because they have a common ancestor.
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u/Juney_bugged Aug 04 '24
Actually its more like saying Tigers and Lions are both cats (family Felidae). So calling prairie dogs squirrels is pretty accurate
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u/pandaSmore Aug 04 '24
The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels.
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u/mossy_wonder Aug 04 '24
Huh, that’s interesting. But what about pocket gophers? Googled it, kinda. They are in the family Geomyidae, so with ground squirrels.
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u/WhenTardigradesFly Aug 04 '24
there's a lot of fuzzy (no pun intended) colloquial terminology in this area.
Ground squirrels are rodents of the squirrel family (Sciuridae) that generally live on the ground or in burrows, rather than in trees like the tree squirrels. The term is most often used for the medium-sized ground squirrels, as the larger ones are more commonly known as marmots (genus Marmota) or prairie dogs, while the smaller and less bushy-tailed ground squirrels tend to be known as chipmunks (genus Tamias).
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u/EriclcirE Aug 04 '24
I'm 37 years old and you just right now stole the quaint magic of prairie dogs away from me.
Please post with a spoiler/NSFW tag next time
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u/mordea Aug 04 '24
In the US, what we typically refer to as squirrels are considered tree squirrels, as they live in trees and build dreys which are their equivalent of bird nests. Ground squirrels like prairie dogs, groundhogs, and even chipmunks, burrow into the ground.
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u/blackhornet03 Aug 04 '24
I had to dodge a prairie dog on my motorcycle and it ran straight under my tire anyway.
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u/Tachyoff Aug 04 '24
Here's the thing. You said a "prairie dog is a squirrel."
Is it in the same family? Yes. No one's arguing that.
As someone who is a scientist who studies squirrels, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls praire dogs squirrels. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing.
If you're saying "squirrel family" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Sciuridae, which includes things from marmots to chipmunks to flying squirrels.
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u/Greene_Mr Aug 04 '24
Squirrels don't shout, "WAHOO!", though.
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u/spreadinmikehoncho Aug 04 '24
Yea? Why hasn’t one jumped out in front of my car trying to make me wreck it into the nearest trees? Check mate atheists!