Five-striped Palm Squirrel feeding on Ficus berries, in Nepal

From the archive record

The northern palm squirrel (Funambulus pennantii) also called the five-striped palm squirrel is a species of rodent in the Sciuridae family. It is found in the Andaman Islands, Nicobar Islands (where it is introduced), India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran. In India, it is fairly common in urban areas, even in large cities such as Delhi and Kolkata. Two subspecies, Funambulus pennantii argentescens and Funambulus pennantii lutescens, were suggested by Wroughton in addition to the nominate race; however, more recent workers do not make this distinction. Thorington and Hoffman in Wilson and Reeder (2005) listed only two subspecies: F. p. pennantii and F. p. argentescens. However, Ghose et al. (2004) described two additional subspecies: F. p. chhattisgarhi (distribution: eastern part of