The families and genera of living rodents / by J.R. Ellerman ; with a list of named forms (1758-1936) by R.W. Hayman and G.W.C.Holt.

Abstract

the other genera occurring in the area being Mcsocricetiis and Phodopus. In addition to the four great subfamilies of Muridae being well represented as indicated above, there is a very interesting subfamily confined apparently to Palaearctic China and adjacent parts of Siberia only, the Myospalacinae, with one genus, Myospalax. The family Spalacidae, which is here restricted to the genus Spalax alone, is purely Palaearctic, ranging round the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea from Hungary and the Balkan States to Egypt, and occurring in South Russia. The family Muscardinidae, represented by the typical subfamilv, is more or less western in general distribution, though represented in Japan. The four better known genera, Eliomys, Dyromvs, Glis and Muscardinus all appear to meet in Central Europe, so far as their range is concerned. Dvi'omys goes east to Tianshan and Zungaria, but not west of Central Europe; Glis ranges to Spain and the Atlantic, also east to the Caucasus and Turkestan; E/iomvs does not range east of European Russia, but occurs again in Sinai and North Africa, as well as the Iberian Peninsula;Muscardinus is not known from Spain nor east of European Russia, but ranges naturally in England and in Scandinavia, which none of the others reach except by introduction. The family Dipodidae has its headquarters in the Palaearctic.Of the more primitive groups, the Sicistinae (Sicista) has the widest range, occurring from Scandinavia, the Balkans, and Hungary, more or less across the area evidently, in suitable localities. The Chinese Eozapus represents the American subfamily Zapodinae (the only subfamily occurring in that continent). The Cardiocraniinae, containing two extremely rare types, Cardiocranius and Salpingoius, appears to be restricted to the more inaccessible parts of Chinese Central Asia, except that a species of Salpingotus is known from Afghanistan. Of the more specialized groups, the Euchoreutinae {Euc/ioreutes) is restricted to the deserts of Inner China; the Dipodinae have, however, a wide range outside Western Europe. Alhictaga and Dipus both appear to range from South Russia across much of the Asiatic portion of the area, east more or less to the North Chinese Pacific coast; Jaculus ranges across North Africa from Morocco to Egypt and east as far as Persia; and generic types worthy ot note confined to the Palaearctic with more restricted ranges are Scirtopoda, Paradipus, and Pygeretmus.The Sciuridae have, as usual, a wide distribution in the area; only in contrast to the normal element (arboreal) in tropical areas, most of the Palaearctic genera are Ground-squirrels. Citellus and Marnwta have the widest ranges, both occurring in Europe as well as much of Asia, and both occurring again in North America. Tamias, principally American, ranges in North Russia, Siberia and China. Atlantoxerus, confined to Morocco and adjacent region, represents a somewhat different type of Ground-squirrel tound chiefly in 52 DISTRIBUTION Africa, and evidently not represented in either America or the Indo-Ma...

Multi-locus phylogeny using topotype specimens sheds light on the systematics of Niviventer (Rodentia, Muridae) in China

“…Niviventer lotipes (group 23), recognized by Li et al [10] for its distinct karyotype, was not supported as a putative species by any of our BPP analyses. It was originally described as a subspecies of N. confucianus [35] on the basis of the holotype from Nada, Hainan, then treated as a subspecies of N. niviventer [33, 36] or a synonym of N. tenaster [9]. We did not included any topotype of N. lotipes (Danzhou, Hainan), but all specimens we included from Hainan, Fujian and Guangxi could be affiliated with the holotype (AMNH M-59303) of N. lotipes based on the sharp bicolor appearance of the tail, and are different from specimens used in Li et al [10], showing a sharp bicolor appearance.…”

Towards a uniform nomenclature for ground squirrels: the status of the Holarctic chipmunks

“…Currently, the 25 recognized species are allocated to three subgenera within the genus Tamias: Tamias Illiger, 1811 for the lone species in eastern North America; Eutamias Trouessart, 1880 for the one recognized Eurasian species (but see Obolenskaya et al 2009);and Neotamias A. H. Howell, 1929 for 23 species from western North America. However, for much of the last century, two genera of chipmunks were recognized (Howell 1929, 1938, Hall and Kelson 1959, Hall 1981: Tamias for chipmunks lacking P3 (among other characters) and Eutamias (including Neotamias as a subgenus) for forms retaining this tooth (but see Ellerman 1940 andBryant 1945, who treated them as one). Allocating all chipmunks to a single genus became generally accepted following Nadler et al (1977), Corbet (1978), and Ellis and Maxson (1979) and was codified by global checklists (Corbet andHill 1980 andlater editions, Honacki et al 1982 andlater editions).…”

Oldest skeleton of a fossil flying squirrel casts new light on the phylogeny of the group

“…Therefore, for most flying squirrel species character states are based in Thorington et al, 2005. We have assumed that postcranial character states are the same for all the species within a given genus, which is apparently reasonable since the diagnoses for most squirrel genera and species take into account cranial and dental traits (Ellerman, 1940; Moore, 1959). Below we list the morphological characters used in the analyses.…”

“…However, we must note that none of these characters distinguishes flying squirrels exclusively. Indeed, overall skull morphology of some large-sized tree squirrels such as Ratufa and Protoxerus (Ellerman, 1940; Moore, 1959) is similar to that of large-sized flying squirrels.…”