All but two species are native to the northern and western parts of North America, from
California and
Minnesota through the north-western United States and western
Canada; the Arctic ground squirrel inhabits Arctic terrain on both sides of the
Bering Strait, while the long-tailed ground squirrel is exclusively found in Asia. The name of the genus is said to be derived from the Latin uro, meaning "tail" and citellus for "ground squirrel".[2] The proper word for "tail" in classical Latin is cauda.[3]Oura (οὐρά) is the ancient Greek word for "tail".[4]
^Herron, Matthew D.; Castoe, Todd A.; Parkinson, Christopher L. (2004). "Sciurid phylogeny and the paraphyly of Holarctic ground squirrels (Spermophilus)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 31 (3): 1015–30.
doi:
10.1016/j.ympev.2003.09.015.
PMID15120398.
^Lewis, C.T. & Short, C. (1879). A Latin dictionary founded on Andrews' edition of Freund's Latin dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
^Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press.