Nesokia indica (Gray and Hardwicke, 1830)

Guy G. Musser & Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 501-755 : 632

Nesokia indica (Gray and Hardwicke, 1830) . Illustr. Indian Zool., 1:pl. 11.

TYPE LOCALITY: India (uncertain) .

DISTRIBUTION: Modern range covers Bangladesh, NE India (Bihar), NW India (Kumaon and Rajputana), Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel, NE Egypt, NW China (Xinjiang), Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tadzhikistan. Late Pleistocene sites are beyond modern range in Egypt and in N Sudan ( Osborn and Helmy, 1980).

SYNONYMS: bacheri , bailwardi , beaba , boettgeri , brachyura , buxtoni , chitralensis, dukelskiana , griffithi , hardwickei , huttoni , insularis , legendrei , myosura, satunini, scullyi , suilla .

COMMENTS: Chromosomal data in different contexts reported by Thelma and Rao (1982), Rao et al. (1983), Juyal et al. (1989), and Dubey and Raman (1992). External, cranial, and dental morphology supported a close phylogenetic relationship with Bandicota ( Misonne, 1969; Niethammer, 1977; Wroughton, 1908), and electrophoretic comparisons of eight loci indicated a sister-species alliance with B. indica ( Radtke and Niethammer, 1984 / 85). Substantial morphological variation is present among geographic samples of N. indica , and careful systematic revision is required to determine whether this variation represents one or more species.