Geographic isolation created distinct pelage characters in Finlayson’s squirrel on isolated island offshore of the Indochina Peninsula in Central Vietnam

Ly, Tu Ngoc and Nguyen, Son Truong and Motokawa, Masaharu and Vu, Duong Thuy and Bui, Hai Tuan and Dang, Phuong Huy and Oshida, Tatsuo (2021) Geographic isolation created distinct pelage characters in Finlayson’s squirrel on isolated island offshore of the Indochina Peninsula in Central Vietnam. ACTA ZOOLOGICA ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARUM HUNGARICAE : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ANIMAL TAXONOMY AND ECOLOGY, 67 (4). pp. 403-415. ISSN 1217-8837 (print); 2064-2474 (online)

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Abstract

We found distinct pelage characters in Finlayson’s squirrel (Callosciurus finlaysonii) population, which is endemic to Lao Island of the Cham Islands, located off the coast of central Vietnam. Among squirrels of the ‘C. erythraeus-finlaysonii complex’, which consists of all forms of C. erythraeus and C. finlaysonii, mitochondrial cytochrome-b sequences show that the Lao Island squirrel forms a cluster with C. finlaysonii with external characters of C. erythraeus flavimanus, defined previously as ‘C. finlaysonii morpha flavimanus’. Both squirrel forms, however, differed in pelage colour. This different colouration may have arisen from the effect of geographic isolation.

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