Marmota baibacina Kastschenko, 1899 . Rezul't. Altaisk. Zool. Exp. 1898, p. 62.

TYPE LOCALITY: " ...Multa River, near Nizhne-Uimon in the Altai Mountains" [Altaisk. Krai, Russia] (Ognev, 1963a: 252). Alternatively, Aktol' River near Cherga, Gorno-Altaisk. A.O. (Kuznetsov, in Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951:514) .

DISTRIBUTION: Altai Mtns, SW Siberia (Russia), SE Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan; Mongolia; Xinjiang (China). Introduced into Caucasus Mtns (Dagestan, Russia; Gromov et al., 1965:360).

SYNONYMS: aphanasievi Kuznetsov, 1965; centralis (Thomas, 1909); kastschenkoi Stroganov and Yudin, 1956; lewisi (Audubon and Bachman, 1854); ognevi Scalon, 1950.

COMMENTS: Placed by Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951:514) in marmota, and by Corbet (1978c:81) in bobak; Kapitonov (1966) analyzed purported hybridization between baibacina and bobak, while Nikol'skii (1974) and Nikol'skii et al. (1983) found speciesspecific vocalizations. Most Russian authors retain both as distinct species (Gromov et al., 1965:337-387; Zimina, 1978; Zholnerovskaya et al., 1990) and include centralis in this species. Kapitonov (1966) indicated that the population called aphanasievi is included in this species; but also see Corbet (1978c:81). Includes lewisi, a nomen oblitum (Hoffmann, 1977); baibacina (Brandt, 1843) is a nomen nudum. See also bobak, sibirica .