Nannospalax ehrenbergi (Nehring, 1898)

Guy G. Musser & Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 501-755 : 753

Nannospalax ehrenbergi (Nehring, 1898) . Sitzb. Ges. Naturf. Fr. Berlin (for December, 1897), 178, pl. 2 [1898].

TYPE LOCALITY: Israel, Jaffa .

DISTRIBUTION: From Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel through N Egypt to N Libya (see Lay and Nadler, 1972, for North African range); possibly SW Turkey (Savie and Nevo, 1990).

SYNONYMS: aegyptiacus , berytensis , fritschi, intermedius , kirgisorum .

COMMENTS: Chromosomal data for North African populations provided by Lay and Nadler (1972). Libyan populations reviewed by Ranck (1968) and those in Egypt by Osborn and Helmy (1980). For more than 30 years, Israeli populations of this "superspecies" have been the subjects of intensive research concerning evolutionary theory and the processes of speciation and adaptive radiation (see Nevo, 1991).