Microtus leucurus (Blyth, 1863) . J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 32:89.

TYPE LOCALITY: India, Ladakh, near Lake Chomoriri (= Tsomoriri) .

DISTRIBUTION: Chinese provinces of S Qinghai (Zheng and Wang, 1980) and Xizang (Feng et al., 1986) on the Tibetan Plateau, and high altitudes in the Himalayas west to Kashmir (see Niethammer, 1970).

SYNONYMS: everesti, petulans, strauchi, waltoni, zadoensis.

COMMENTS: Classified by Zagorodnyuk (1990) under the subgenus Phaiomys of the genus Neodon; others have recognized Phaiomys as a genus (Repenning et al., 1990). Whatever its ranking, leucurus may date from the early evolution of the genus, as suggested by its association with the late Pliocene Allophaiomys, a taxon regarded by most as ancestral to Microtus (see Martin, 1989b; Repenning et al., 1990). As classified in the genus Microtus, this species can still be called leucurus; the older leucurus Gerbe, 1852, is a synonym of nivalis, a species which has been reallocated from Microtus to Chionomys (see that account).