ABSTRACT. – The Red squirrel Sciurus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 is currently expanding its range in plains and hills of Central Italy, colonizing or re-colonizing areas where it was never or only irregularly recorded since the 1950s. Here we report some observations regarding this range expansion based on a relatively large data-set covering the period 1850-2011 (471 records: 72 published, 399 unpublished) in a large study area covering the hills and plains of Tyrrhenian Central Italy (Latium). After considering the temporal patterns of a more recent sub-set of presence data (1950-2009: i.e. six decades) we identified three geographic regions: (i) a large northern region with an area where the species occurred historically (at least since 1950: Volsini Mts) and an area where the species occurs more recently (after the 1970s); (ii) a region with two areas, one where the species occurred irregularly between the 1970s and 2000s, and, a second one where it has occurred from the 2000s; (iii) a region where the species was locally extinct in the 1950s-1960s, where significant amounts of land reclamation and forest fragmentation and isolation occurred in the 20th century. These geographic and temporal patterns mirror (i) some recent changes in temporal and spatial regime of coppice management, (ii) abandonment of traditional farming and cultivation of mountainous areas, leading to an increase of forested area, (iii) implementation of conservation measures in nature reserves and in Special Areas of Conservation (from the second half of 1970s), and (iv) the ageing of planted coniferous forests (mostly from 1950s). These co-occurring factors may explain the range expansion of the species in recent times.