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Many, see the article Sciuridae. A squirrel is any one of the many small or medium-sized rodents in the family Sciuridae. In the English-speaking world, "squirrel" commonly refers to members of this family's genera Sciurus and Tamiasciurus, which are tree squirrels with large bushy tails, indigenous to Asia, the Americas and Europe. Similar genera are found in Africa. The Sciuridae family also include flying squirrels, as well as ground squirrels such as the chipmunks, prairie dogs, and woodchucks. Members of the family Anomaluridae are sometimes misleadingly referred to as "scaly-tailed flying squirrels" although they are not closely related to the true squirrels. The word squirrel, first attested in 1327, comes via Anglo-Norman esquirel from the Old French escurel, the reflex of a Latin word sciurus which was itself borrowed from Greek.[1] The native Old English word, acweorna, only survived into Middle English (as aquerna) before being replaced.[1] The word itself comes from the Greek word s???????, skiouros, which means shadow-tailed, because they use their tail to shade their whole body. Common squirrels include the Fox Squirrel (S. niger); the Western Gray Squirrel (S. griseus); the Douglas Squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii); the American Red Squirrel T. hudsonicus; and the Eastern Grey Squirrel (S. carolinensis), of which the "Black Squirrel" is a variant.
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