Franklin's Ground Squirrel - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

Franklin's ground squirrel was first described by Joseph Sabine in 1822, who named it in honor of the British Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin. It was formerly placed in the large ground squirrel genus Spermophilus, in its own subgenus, Poliocitellus, but since DNA sequencing of the cytochrome b gene has shown Spermophilus to be paraphyletic it is now placed in its own genus. Franklin's ground squirrel is suggested to be sister to a clade containing not only the Mohave, round-tailed, spotted, and Perote ground squirrels (genus Xerospermophilus), but the prairie dogs as well. There are no commonly-recognized subspecies.