Genus-Animalia: Tamias

Tamias is a genus of chipmunks within the tribe Marmotini of the squirrel family. It 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 may include all chipmunk species in three genera: 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 arbitrary, 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 each of the three genera have been split.

Reference: Wikipedia