Myoxidae Gray, 1821

Mary Ellen Holden, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Myoxidae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 763-770 : 763

Family Myoxidae Gray, 1821 . London Med. Repos., 15:303.

SYNONYMS: Gliridae Thomas, 1897 (excluding Platacanthomyinae); Leithiidae Lydekker, 1895 ; Muscardinidae Palmer, 1899 (excluding Platacanthomyinae).

COMMENTS: Simpson (1945) deemed Myoxidae Gray, 1821 invalid due to the apparent synonymy of the type genus Myoxus Zimmermann, 1780 , with Glis Brisson, 1762 , and used Gliridae Thomas, 1897 . Hopwood (1947) argued that Brisson's names are invalid because they are not Linnaean or binomial. As noted by Hopwood (1947), Glis is valid in Erxleben (1777) for marmots, ground-squirrels, voles, and lemmings, rendering Glis Storr, 1780 (which included pedetids, dormice, and other rodents) invalid. Thus the oldest available name to replace Glis Brisson is Myoxus Zimmermann , valid in Linnaeus (1788) for dormice, and the correct family name for dormice is Myoxidae (for further discussion see Wahlert et al., In Press).

Carleton and Musser (1984) verified and discussed Alston's (1876) placement of Platacanthomyinae within the Muridae . Wahlert et al. (In Press) provided a history of classification and an introduction to morphological characters of myoxids. With the exception of the Graphiurinae , the extant genera are surviving members of distinct evolutionary lineages which were clearly differentiated by the early to medial Miocene ( de Bruijn, 1967; Daams, 1981). De Bruijn (1967) and Daams (1981) each proposed classifications of fossil and extant myoxids based on dental characters. Wahlert et al. (In Press) incorporated dental characters plus forty-three osteological characters in a phylogenetic analysis of extant myoxid genera. Their resulting classification is similar to that of de Bruijn (1967) except that Glirulus is included in Myoxinae (not placed in its own subfamily), Leithiinae is subdivided into two tribes, and Selevinia is placed as a close relative of Myomimus . The classification of Wahlert et al. (In Press) is followed below. The distributions of the species occuring in China were verified and much enhanced by the efforts of Lin Yonglie.