Paraxerus ( Aethosciurus ) poensis (A. Smith, 1830)

Denys, Christiane, Missoup, Alain Didier, Nicolas, Violaine, Sylla, Morlaye, Douno, Mory, Kadjo, Blaise, Lalis, Aude & Monadjem, Ara, 2025, Annotated checklist of rodents from a biodiversity hotspot, Mount Nimba (West Africa), Zoosystema 47 (27), pp. 617-689 : 654

Paraxerus ( Aethosciurus) poensis (A. Smith, 1830)

Sciurus poensis A. Smith, 1830: 128 .

REMARKS

This squirrel does not display any flank stripe and is uniformly colored in a dark brown-grey pelage. It is a rather small squirrel with no rufous marks on its limbs. The Nimba specimen had no external measurements but fits in size with the Seredou specimens described by Roche (1971). The HF is between 36 and 40 mm long in Nimba. The tail, which is longer than HB, does not display any colored rings and has the same color as the dorsal pelage. The terminal tuft is small (around 4 cm long) and sparsely haired. The ventral pelage is ochraceous yellow-grey. The size variability of the species is not well known ( Table 11 ). The incisors are orange and orthodont. The skull is small to medium in size and its proportions fit well with the described specimens, with a GLS < 40 mm and the presence of a P3/ at the upper tooth row. We were unable to measure the Nimba specimens, whose skulls were all broken. The bullae display a slight trace of a transbular septum but according to Moore (1959) there may be 1 to 2 septa visible in the genus.