The cream-coloured giant squirrel is a large squirrel active by day in the upper canopy. It eats fruit and other plant matter, as well as insects.
The upperparts range from orange-brown to pale buff, while the underparts are buff to white.
The pale giant squirrel lives high in the tree canopy of Southeast Asian forests. A 2025 study combined DNA from museum specimens with distribution records and climate models to reconstruct the history of giant squirrels in the genus Ratufa. For R. affinis, the researchers used 121 locality records after spacing records at least 10 kilometres apart to model present-day climate suitability.
Mitochondrial DNA grouped samples from Borneo, Belitung and the southern Natuna Islands in an eastern lineage, and samples from the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, the Riau Islands and northern Natunas in a western lineage. Nuclear DNA showed a shallower split. The two genetic datasets therefore revealed different depths of regional separation within the same species.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The study describes Ratufa squirrels as canopy-dwelling and forest-dependent. In its R. affinis climate model, precipitation seasonality was the most influential variable; precipitation in the wettest month and temperature in the wettest quarter also contributed. Forest continuity and rainfall conditions are therefore central to understanding the species’ modelled distribution.