Ochotona thibetana (Milne-Edwards, 1871)

Robert S. Hoffmann, 1993, Order Lagomorpha, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 807-827 : 812

Ochotona thibetana (Milne-Edwards, 1871) . Nouv. Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris, Bull., 7:93.

TYPE LOCALITY: "mountain near Moupin" [Baoxing, Ya'an County, Sichuan, China.] .

DISTRIBUTION: Shanxi, Shaanxi, W Hubei, Yunnan, Sichuan, S Tibet ( China); N Burma; Sikkim ( India); perhaps adjacent Bhutan and India.

STATUS: O. t. sikimaria of Sikkim may be endangered by habitat destruction (A. T. Smith et al., 1990). Other forms do not appear to be threatened.

SYNONYMS: hodgsoni Bonhote, 1905 ; huangensis Matschie, 1908 ; nanggenica Zheng et al., 1980; osgoodi Anthony, 1941 ; sacrario Thomas, 1923; sikimaria Thomas, 1922 ; syrinx Thomas, 1911 ; xunhuaensis Shou and Feng, 1984; zappeyi Thomas, 1922 .

COMMENTS: Formerly included cansus , forresti , and nubrica ; see comments therein. The taxon aliensis, originally described as a subspecies of thibetana , is now considered a synonym of nubrica ( Feng et al., 1986; A. T. Smith et al., 1990). O. osgoodi , described as a distinct species by Anthony (1941), was listed as a subspecies of O. pusilla by Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951), and subsequently allocated to thibetana by Corbet (1978c) and Weston (1982). The isolated subspecies sikimaria was assigned to cansus by Feng and Kao (1974) and Feng and Zheng (1985), but transferred to thibetana by A. T. Smith et al. (1990). Erbaeva (1988: 190-191) considered cansus and sikimaria subspecies of thibetana , as well as lhasaensis, here placed in nubrica ; however, she thought hodgsoni was probably a distinct species (based on examination of a skull photograph).