tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5869855184555211486.post1473872239881248309..comments2024-02-14T19:36:30.612-05:00Comments on A Wandering Naturalist: Sarawak: Eagles, Darners and SunbirdsRonald Orensteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939448993478040291noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5869855184555211486.post-75236427179662681122013-12-11T22:05:21.788-05:002013-12-11T22:05:21.788-05:00I am not currently in Borneo (I get back on 15 Jan...I am not currently in Borneo (I get back on 15 January and will be there, off and on, until mid-March) so I have not had a chance to follow up on this. As the blog indicates I have been corresponding with Quentin Phillipps on this (I was not aware that the Payne guide was being revised as well) and I was planning to drop a line to Lord Cranbrook, who I believe is still in Kuching. Quentin certainly thinks that the squirrel in the photo is nigrovittatus (He wrote me recently that both he and Karen Phillips "are both firmly of the opinion that your first Penrissen Squirrel is C.nigrovittatus Black-banded Squirrel not C. orestes", but as far as I know no one has checked for mislabelled specimens in any museum collection. <br /><br />Richard Thorington's response to my initial question was "Though it is hard to rely on photographs, this animal does seem to resemble Callosciurus nigrovittatus more than any other species. On page 144 of Squirrels of the World I describe the subspecies C. n. klossi, which is found on "Saddle Island, west of Kalimantan (Indonesia)." It is described as "blue-bellied", similar to C. orestes, but not as highly colored and lacking a pale patch behind the ear. Your photograph, and the one taken near Kuching, may indicate that the range for nigrovittatus is more extensive than we show."<br /><br />I am not a squirrel expert so I can't really weigh in authoritatively on this (though I presume we are all agreed that it is not C. notatus?<br /><br />Anyway, I gather that even if it is orestes and not nigrovittatus, this still represents a range extension into the Penrissen Mountains? I would not call the area where I saw the squirrel lowlands exactly (but note the squirrel photographed at Bako that I linked to on the site, though Quentin thinks that one may be notatus).<br /><br />I would certainly like to get to the bottom of this!Ronald Orensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01939448993478040291noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5869855184555211486.post-42497663035357838432013-11-15T02:57:16.456-05:002013-11-15T02:57:16.456-05:00Dear Ronald,
I am rewriting the squirrel section ...Dear Ronald,<br /><br />I am rewriting the squirrel section of Payne et al. Mammals of Borneo and am interested in your finding of possible C. orestes in lowland sites. Were any conclusions made. To me it quite clearly looks like orestes.<br /><br />Best wishes<br /><br />ErikErik Meijaardnoreply@blogger.com