Cynomys Rafinesque, 1817

Robert S. Hoffmann & Charles G. Anderson, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Sciuridae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 419-465 : 424

Cynomys Rafinesque, 1817 . Am. Mon. Mag., 2:43.

TYPE SPECIES: Cynomys socialis Rafinesque, 1817 (= Arctomys ludoviciana Ord, 1815 ).

SYNONYMS: Arctomys Ord, 1815 ; Cynomomus Osborn, 1894 ; Leucocrossuromys Hollister, 1916 ; Mamcynomiscus Herrera, 1899 ; Monax Warden, 1819 .

COMMENTS: Tribe Cynomyini ( Gromov et al., 1965) or Marmotini . Revised by Pizzimenti (1975). Clark et al. (1971) published a key to the genus. Includes Cynomys and Leucocrossuromys as subgenera. Relationships of Cynomys to other ground squirrels are unclear. While generally regarded as monophyletic, and a sister-group to North American Spermophilus, recent evidence suggests that Cynomys may be most closely related to subgenus Spermophilus, making genus Spermophilus paraphyletic (Hafner, 1984:17).