Neotoma (Neotoma) albigula Hartley 1894

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 : 1053

Neotoma (Neotoma) albigula Hartley 1894

Neotoma (Neotoma) albigula Hartley 1894 , Proc. California Acad. Sci., ser. 2, 4: 157.

Type Locality: USA, Arizona, Pima Co., vicinity of Fort Lowell, near Tucson.

Vernacular Names: White-throated Woodrat.

Synonyms: Neotoma (Neotoma) angusticeps Merriam 1894 ; Neotoma (Neotoma) brevicauda Durrant 1934 ; Neotoma (Neotoma) cumulator Mearns 1897 ; Neotoma (Neotoma) grandis Elliot 1904 ; Neotoma (Neotoma) laplataensis F. W. Miller 1933 ; Neotoma (Neotoma) mearnsi Goldman 1915 ; Neotoma (Neotoma) melanura Merriam 1894 ; Neotoma (Neotoma) seri Townsend 1912 ; Neotoma (Neotoma) sheldoni Goldman 1915 ; Neotoma (Neotoma) varia Burt 1932 ; Neotoma (Neotoma) venusta True 1894 .

Distribution: SW Colorado and W New Mexico west of the Río Grande to SE California, USA, south to N Sinaloa and S Chihuahua west of the Río Conchos, México, including islands in the Sea of Cortez (see Edwards, et al. 2001:Fig. 4).

Conservation: IUCN – Endangered as N. varia , Lower Risk (lc) as N. albigula .

Discussion: Subgenus Neotoma , floridana species group ( sensu Edwards and Bradley, 2002 b ). Closely related to N. floridana and N. micropus ( Birney, 1976; Hooper, 1960; Planz et al., 1996), the three considered semispecies by Zimmerman and Nejtek (1977). Formerly included populations recognized as N. leucodon (see below) based on DNA restriction-site ( Planz et al., 1996) and gene-sequence (Edwards et al., 2001) investigations. Patterns of conventional morphometric variation ( Rogers and Schmidly, 1981), however, do not intelligibly correspond to the specific limits as drawn by Edwards et al. (2001); denser geographic sampling across the river barriers identified by those authors is warranted to bolster evidence for specific separation and to refine distributional limits. Sister species to the N. floridana and N. magister clade based on parsimony and likelihood distillations of cytochrome b sequences (Edwards et al., 2001; Edwards and Bradley, 2002 b).

Subspecific taxonomy updated by Hall and Genoways (1970), but continued designation of racial divisions is uninformative in light of recent specific changes. Attention should be devoted to the validity of synonyms here attributed following the study of Edwards et al. (2001). Includes varia from Isla Datil (Turner), Sea of Cortez, formerly treated as a species but considered inseparable from N. albigula by Bogan (1997), who retained the form as a subspecies. See Macêdo and Mares (1988, Mammalian Species, 310) .