Apodemus Kaup, 1829

Jo, Yeong-Seok, Baccus, John T. & Koprowski, John L., 2018, Mammals of Korea: a review of their taxonomy, distribution and conservation status, Zootaxa 4522 (1), pp. 1-216 : 188

Genus Apodemus Kaup, 1829

The records for A. sylvaticus in Korea are based on specimens collected in the 1960s ( Lee & Lim 1974). Since then, few were observed or collected, and the presence of A. sylvaticus in Korea appears questionable ( Han 1994, 2004c). We regard these records as erroneous identifications of A. peninsulae . The identifications of A. sylvaticus were based on the presence of a long tail, long hind foot and long ears (especially the tail longer than the head-body length), but measurements overlapped those of A. peninsulae , previously a subspecies of A. sylvaticus and later a subspecies of A. speciosus . Also, the location of Korea is substantially beyond the eastern limit of the distribution for A. sylvaticus . Thus, we removed Apodemus (or Sylvaemus ) sylvaticus ( Linnaeus, 1758) from the list of Korean mammals.

Although some references used chejuensis as a subspecies of A. agrarius , we considered A. chejuensis a distinct species because a reproductive barrier was confirmed between the two species ( Jo et al. 2017b). Thus, we list three species of Apodemus in Korea.