Meriones (Parameriones) persicus gurganensis, Goodwin, George G., 1939

Goodwin, George G., 1939, Five Newrodents From The Eastern Elburz Moitntains And A New Race Of Hare From Teheran, American Museum Novitates 1050, pp. 1-6 : 2-3

Meriones (Parameriones) persicus gurganensis , new subspecies

Gurgan Gerbil

TYPE.-No. 88881 , Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist.; adult d; Dasht, headwaters of the Gurgan RiverandsouthsideoftheGurgan Valley, Bujnurd district ; alt. about 3200 feet; collector, G. G. Goodwin, Nov. 24, 1938. The type is a skin and skull in good condition. Besides the type there are three topotypes and one specimen from the Kurkhud Mountains, 4000 feet on the opposite side of the Gurgan Valley.

GENERAL CHARACTERS.- A medium-sized, buff-colored gerbil with soft pelage and white under parts; tail, longer than head and body; buffy below with a brush of long dusky hairs from tip to about half its length; underside of feet entirely naked; smaller and with larger bullae than typical M. persicus Blanford from Southern Persia; about the size of Tatera suschkini Kashkarov, from the Great Balkan Mountains, Transcaspia, but differing in color and cranial characters. Kashkarov's T. suschkini is apparently a race of the bushy tailed Meriones persicus group and not Tatera persica.

DESCRIPTION.-Color above pinkish buff overlaid with black-tippedhairs, darkestonrump and top of head, base of hairs deep neutral gray; ears, clay-color; an indistinct buffy white mark above and behind the eye and behind the base of ear; upperside of tail from base for about half its length like back, distal half the hairs longer and blackish, pencil hairs from base soiled whitish and tipped with neutral gray; underside of tail, cinnamon-buff, irregularly marked with white. Under parts, including underside of fore and hind limbs, lips, and well up on side of face and body, upperside of fore and hind feet, white to roots of hair.

SKULL.-Long and narrow; rostrum slender; nasals, long and narrow; bullae, large, extending posteriorly beyond the occipital'condyles; coronoid process extending rather abruptly upward above the upper edge of the mandible.

MEASUREMENTS.-Skin measured in the field. Total length, 325 mm.; head and body, 150; tail vertebrae, 175; hind foot including claws, 43. Skull: greatest length, 42.3; condylobasal length, 37.5; zygomatic width, 21.5; interorbital constriction, 6.7; length of nasals, 17.5; alveoli of maxillary toothrow, 6.1; diastema, 10.8; anterior palatine foramina, 7.8; tympanic mastoid bullae, 15.3 X 10; mandibular toothrow, 5.7.

REMARKS.- Meriones p. gurganensis needs comparison with only two described forms: from typical persicus , it is readily distinguishable by its smaller size, paler color and larger bullae; from suschkini, by its longer nasals, 17.5 as compared with 14.6, longer toothrow, 6.1 with 5.7, larger skull, 42.1 with 40.6, larger tympanic bullae, '13.2 with 12. Suschkini is described as gray in color and underside of tail white, whereas the Gurgan specimens are buffy in color and, while they all have more or less white on the underside of the tail, the general tone in adult specimens is cinnamon-buff. Thenewformisgeographically separated from suschkini by the low Turkman plains and from persicus by the central Persian plains. Merionres ambrosus Thomas from the Bachtiari Mountains is a larger and more richly colored race than gurganensis with smaller bullae.