Glis glis petruccii, Goodwin, 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 : 1

Glis glis petruccii , new subspecies

Petrucci Dormouse

TYPE.-NO. 88759 , Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist.; semi-adult d; Gouladahfoothillsof the Kurkhud Mountains, District Bujnurd, northeastern Iran; alt. about 3000 feet; collector, G. G. Goodwin, Nov. 4, 1938 . The type is a skin and skull in good condition, upper molars slightly worn, premolar and third molars in place but unworn.

GENERAL CHARACTERS.- A comparatively small dormouse with short thick buffy gray pelage, and only a few scattered long black guard hairs; tail, bushy, much darker than back; under parts, white; skull, short and broad with high smooth braincase and relatively large molars.

DESCRIPTION.-Color above dark drab, darkest on middle of back and grading to a paler and more buffy shade on sides of body and rump, the dark drab extending down upperside of fore and hind limbs to metatarsals and metacarpals; basalcolorofhairdarkneutralgray; areabehind and below ear light buff, darkened by the basal color of hair; ears, dark mouse-gray, moderately covered with fine blackish hairs; head, slightly paler than back, grading to almost buffy white on nose; eye-ring and center line on tip of nose, blackish, Tail dark clove-brown for most of its length, becoming color of back at extreme base. Under parts, including inner side of fore and hind limbs, toes of fore and hind feet and a sharply defined line down underside of tail to tip, white to roots of hair; the white of under parts extending on cheeks to lower edge of eye ring.

SKULL.-Small, broad, with short rostrum; braincase deep and slightly elevated above rostrum; molariform teeth relatively large and broad.

MEASUREMENTS.-Skin measured in the flesh. Total length, 220 mm.; head and body, 120; tail, 100; hind foot including claws, 27. Skull: greatest length, 31.5; condylobasal length, 30; zygomatic breadth, 19.6; interorbital constriction, 4.8; nasals, 10; diastema, 6.8; alveoli of maxillary toothrow, 6.5.

REMARKS.- GliS g. petruccii is the smallest race of the genus Glis and apparently smaller than Glis g. minutus Martino from Jugoslavia,and G. g. spoliatus Thomas from Trebizond, Turkey. G. g. caspicusSatunin from Aschabad, Turkmania, the nearest geographical race, is about equal in size to typical European Glis glis according to Thomas and therefore larger than petruccii.

A series of 8 specimens from near Astrabad, eastern Mazandaran, may be referable to caspicus. They are considerably larger than petruccii. External and cranial measurements of very young animals are decidedly greater than in the new race though they are practically indistinguishable in color. Four flat skins without feet given to me by a fur dealer at Astrabad and said to have been taken locally are much larger than any of the Legendre Iran Expedition specimens. They have long coarse pelage and are about the color and size of a large European Glis glis . It is possible that these skins represent Satunin's caspicus. The type of petruccii was taken under some blackberry bushes in a valley of oak trees, surrounded by open rolling grassland country. Several days' trapping yielded no further specimens, which indicated that they had gone into hibernation.

I have named this new form in honor of His Excellency, L. Petrucci, Italian Minister to Iran, in appreciation of his splendid co6peration and interest in the wild life of Iran.