Tscherskia triton (de Winton 1899)

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 : 1046

Tscherskia triton (de Winton 1899)

[Cricetus] triton de Winton 1899 , Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1899: 575.

Type Locality: China, N Shantung.

Vernacular Names: Greater Long-tailed Hamster.

Synonyms: Tscherskia albipes Ognev 1914 ; Tscherskia arenosus (Mori 1939) ; Tscherskia bampensis (Kishida 1929) ; Tscherskia collinus (G. M. Allen 1925) ; Tscherskia fuscipes (G. M. Allen 1925) ; Tscherskia incanus (Thomas 1908) ; Tscherskia meihsienensis (Ho 1935) ; Tscherskia nestor (Thomas 1907) ; Tscherskia ningshaanensis Song 1985 ; Tscherskia yamashinai (Kishida 1929) .

Distribution: Upper Ussuri, Russia; NE China from Heilongjiang and Nei Mongol southeast through Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, and Anhui ( Liu et al., 1985) and west through Shanxi to Shaanxi (north and south of Qinling Mtns) ( Wang, 2003; Zhang et al., 1997); also Korean Peninsula ( Won and Smith, 1999).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: G. M. Allen (1940) thoroughly redescribed the species, but whether one or more species are represented among the named forms remains to be resolved. Two sibling chromosomal species have been recognized ( albipes and triton ) but soon after refuted based on additional chromosomal data (see Corbet, 1984, and references therein). Song (1985) proposed ningshaanensis for a sample of T. triton from Shaanxi, but Wang (2003) and Zhang et al. (1997) listed it as a subspecies of Cansumys canus (see that account). Karyotypes and B chromosomes from several Chinese samples described by Wang et al (1999). A related fossil species, T. rusa , has been described from Holocene material in NW Iran ( Storch, 1974), far outside the range of extant Tscherskia .