Morphological variation of plantain squirrel Callosciurus notatus (Boddaert, 1785) (Rodentia: Sciuridae) population in West Sumatra, Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract. Tjong DH, Sari RM, Roesma DI. 2020. Morphological variation of plantain squirrel Callosciurus notatus (Boddaert, 1785) (Rodentia: Sciuridae) population in West Sumatra, Indonesia. Asian J For 21: 54-60. A study about the morphological variation of plantain squirrel among several populations in West Sumatra has been done in West Sumatra. There were 38 specimens of C. notatus collected from Padang, Lubuk Basung, Sangir, and Baso by using a survey and direct collection method. The morphometric measurement was conducted in the Laboratory of Genetic and Biomolecular, Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Andalas University. Morphological measurement data based on 21 external characters and 35 skull characters were analyzed by the Kruskall Wallis test, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and Unweighted Pair Group Method Arithmetic Average (UPGMA). The result showed that there was morphological variation in ten body characters and nine skull characters. It is necessary to do further research to determine what environmental factors specifically influence certain morphological characters.