There are 230 or more species of squirrels: flying, tree and ground squirrels. It is not easy in some instances to draw a line between the last two as some tree squirrels spend a lot of time on the ground and some ground squirrels often take to the trees. In some ground squirrels the tail is bushy but never so much as in tree squirrels, and it is usually not so long.
Ground squirrels are 8—31 in. long of which ½ is tail, the proportions varying with the species. There are three kinds of colouring: almost uniformly yellowish grey, the same but with the back lightly spotted with light buff or yellowish white, and brownish grey with dark stripes, often with lines of yellowish spots. Their ears are small. their legs short and their feet bigger by comparison with tree squirrels such as the grey and the red. A few of the 32 species live in Africa, but most of the others live in North America, from Mexico to Alaska, where some of them are called gophers. There are seven species ranging from eastern Europe across northern and central Asia, which are usually called susliks and spermophiles.
