Abert's squirrel
Sciurus aberti
Mammal
A tassel-eared squirrel of southwestern ponderosa pine forest that lives on the tree almost year-round: inner bark and buds in winter, seeds and pollen cones in season, and underground fungi through the growing season. It builds twig nests in ponderosa crowns rather than caching cones in middens, so it rarely leaves the pine type at all.
Plants in the catalog
Specialist host plants · 1
Lives on this one pine almost year-round: inner bark and buds in winter, seeds and pollen cones in season, twig nests in the crown. It is one of the tightest tree-and-mammal associations in North America, and the squirrel rarely leaves the ponderosa type at all.
Range
Ponderosa pine forest of the southern Rocky Mountains and Colorado Plateau — Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico — continuing south into the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico. The Kaibab squirrel is an isolated race confined to the Kaibab Plateau north of the Grand Canyon.
Sources & citations
Cite this page
Use this citation for the Plotwright wildlife record. Use the source cards below to explore the references that informed its taxonomy, range, conservation, host plants, foraging, and habitat.
Plotwright. (n.d.). Abert's squirrel (Sciurus aberti). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/wildlife/aberts-squirrel
Sources used for this record
This record is compiled from the sources below.
Animal Diversity Web: Sciurus aberti
Species account for the ponderosa pine dependency, the seasonal diet of inner bark, buds, seeds, and hypogeous fungi, and nest building in pine crowns.
GBIF: Sciurus aberti
GBIF backbone key 5219667 is an exact accepted match for Sciurus aberti in family Sciuridae.
iNaturalist: Sciurus aberti
iNaturalist taxon 46018 is the active species record with community observation range data.
Wikipedia: Abert's squirrel
Corroborating reference for the tassel-eared subspecies including the Kaibab squirrel, and for the year-round reliance on ponderosa pine.