Rio Grande ground squirrel
The Rio Grande ground squirrel is a species of squirrel in the family Sciuridae. It is found in Texas and New Mexico in the United States, and in northeastern Mexico.
All the species of Ictidomys were previously believed to belong to the much larger genus Spermophilus, but DNA sequencing of the cytochrome b gene showed that this group was paraphyletic to the prairie dogs and marmots, and could therefore no longer be retained as a single genus. As a result, Ictidomys is now considered as a genus in its own right.
