Tamias fossil map
Where fossils of Tamias have been found, shown on the Earth as it looked about 0 million years ago and on today’s map.
Dots are fossil collections recorded in the Paleobiology Database. The “then” view moves today’s fossil sites back to their positions 0 million years ago (the time slice nearest the median age of the fossils) using the Merdith et al. (2021) plate model; positions are approximate. Open on the timeline map →
| Group | Early mammals |
|---|---|
| Lived | 20.45 million years ago to the present (Burdigalian to Holocene) |
| Periods | Neogene, Quaternary |
| Family | Sciuridae |
| Named by | Illinger 1811 |
| Fossil records | 154 occurrences at 56 locations (PBDB) |
| Found in | United States, Greece, Poland, Canada, China, Germany, Russia, India |
| Rock formations | txn:41486, Barstow, Valentine, Esmeralda, Colter, NS Caliente |
About Tamias
Tamias is a genus of chipmunks in the tribe Marmotini of the squirrel family. The genus includes a single living species, the eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus). The genus name Tamias (Greek: ταμίας) means "treasurer", "steward", or "housekeeper", which is a reference to the animals' role in plant dispersal through their habit of collecting and storing food for winter use.
The genus Tamias was formerly divided into three subgenera that, in sum, included all chipmunk species: Tamias, the eastern chipmunk and other fossil species; Eutamias, of which the Siberian chipmunk (E. sibiricus) is the only living member; and Neotamias, which includes the 23 remaining, mostly western, species. These classifications are subjective, and most taxonomies over the twentieth century have placed the chipmunks in a single genus. However, studies of mitochondrial DNA show that the divergence between each of the three chipmunk groups is comparable to the genetic dissimilarity between Marmota and Spermophilus, so they are now often considered as separate genera.
In addition to the eastern chipmunk, some fossil species from Eurasia have been assigned to this genus:
†Tamias allobrogensis; Mein and Ginsburg, 2002 – Miocene of France
†Tamias anatoliensis; Bosma et al., 2013 – Miocene of Turkey
Text in “About” is quoted from the Wikipedia article Tamias (revision 1368909540), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; introduction excerpted verbatim, formatting removed. Ages, family, authority and fossil records: Paleobiology Database, accessed 23 October 2026. Ages are those of the rock layers the fossils were found in. Wikidata: Q22364.
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