Hacker News Reader

I'm not an expert on squirrels, but that could be a ground squirrel[1] of some sort. Some varieties of ground squirrel look a lot like chipmunks.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_squirrel

View on HN

A quick search for "striped ground squirrel" turned up only one variety, the thirteen-lined ground squirrel. The animal in the photo has stripes like a chipmunk.

Look for stripes on the face: without them, it's probably a squirrel. Both ground squirrels and chipmunks have body stripes, so the face is a better indicator.

http://naturemappingfoundation.org/natmap/facts/chipmunk_vs_...

http://www.differencebetween.info/difference-between-squirre...

You're right, there's no stripes on its face. I stand corrected.

Sadly, that was my most upvoted comment in ~9.5 years on this site.

Ahh, I was about to unvote you, but now I can't bear to do it. Keep my upvote.

To my (admittedly untrained) eye, the picture looks a lot like an Indian palm squirrel (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Indian_P...) – which does have stripes on its back.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com