Marmota (Marmota) baibacina Kastschenko 1899

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Sciuridae, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 754-818 : 799

Marmota (Marmota) baibacina Kastschenko 1899

Marmota (Marmota) baibacina Kastschenko 1899 , Rezul't. Altaisk. Zool. Exp. 1898: 62.

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

Vernacular Names: Gray Marmot.

Subspecies: :

Subspecies Marmota (Marmota) baibacina subsp. baibacina Kastschenko 1899

Subspecies Marmota (Marmota) baibacina subsp. centralis Thomas 1909

Subspecies Marmota (Marmota) baibacina subsp. kastschenkoi Stroganov and Yudin 1956

Distribution: Altai and Tien Shan Mtns, SW Siberia ( Russia), SE Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan; Mongolia; Xinjiang ( China). Introduced into Caucasus Mtns (Dagestan, Russia; Gromov et al., 1965:360).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Subgenus Marmota ( Steppan et al., 1999) . Placed by Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951:514) in marmota , and by Corbet (1978 c:81) in bobak ; Kapitonov (1966) analyzed purported hybridization between baibacina and bobak , while Nikol'skii (1974) and Nikol'skii et al. (1983) found species-specific vocalizations. Most Russian authors retain both as distinct species ( Gromov et al., 1965:337-387; Zholnerovskaya et al., 1990; Zimina, 1978) and include centralis in this species. Steppan et al.(1999) found that bobac and baibacina are sister species. Kapitonov (1966) indicated that the population called aphanasievi is included in this species; but also see Corbet (1978 c:81). Includes lewisi, a nomen oblitum ( Hoffmann, 1977); baibacina (Brandt, 1843) is a nomen nudum. See also bobak , sibirica .