Mesocricetus brandti Nehring 1898

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Cricetidae, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 955-1189 : 1044

Mesocricetus brandti Nehring 1898

Mesocricetus brandti Nehring 1898 , Zool. Anz., 21: 331.

Type Locality: Georgia, near Tbilisi.

Vernacular Names: Brandt's Hamster.

Synonyms: Mesocricetus koenigi Nehring 1898 .

Distribution: Anatolian Turkey and Black Sea Mtns in N Turkey, east into the Caucasus ( Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan; Gromov and Erbajeva, 1995), and south to NW Iran ( Lay, 1967), N Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and N Israel ( Qumsiyeh, 1996, as auratus ).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Corbet (1978 c) reservedly included brandti in M. auratus , following the traditional view ( Ellerman, 1941; Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951). Hamer and Schutowa (1965) earlier established the specific integrity of M. brandti and Lyman and O’Brien (1977) exhaustively revised the species; additional chromosomal data provided by Fang and Jagiello (1992). Population and range in C Anatolian Turkey documented by Spitzenberger (1972) and summarized by Kryštufek and Vohralík (2001). Yiğit et al. (2000 b) broadly inventoried M. brandti in Turkey and contrasted its morphology and karyotype with those of M. auratus in SE Turkey (see above account).