Myodes gapperi Vigors 1830

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 : 1023

Myodes gapperi Vigors 1830

Myodes gapperi Vigors 1830 , Zool. J., 5: 204.

Type Locality: Canada, Ontario, between York (= Toronto) and Lake Simcoe.

Vernacular Names: Southern Red-backed Vole.

Synonyms: Myodes arizonensis (Cockrum and Fitch 1952) ; Myodes athabascae ( Preble 1908) ; Myodes brevicaudus (Merriam 1891) ; Myodes carolinensis (Merriam 1888) ; Myodes cascadensis (Booth 1945) ; Myodes caurinus (Bailey 1898) ; Myodes fuscodorsalis (J. A. Allen 1894) ; Myodes galei ( Merriam 1890) ; Myodes gaspeanus ( Anderson 1943) ; Myodes gauti (Cockrum and Fitch 1952) ; Myodes hudsonius (Anderson 1940) ; Myodes idahoensis (Merriam 1891) ; Myodes limitis (Bailey 1913) ; Myodes loringi (Bailey 1897) ; Myodes maurus (Kellogg 1939) ; Myodes nivarius (Bailey 1897) ; Myodes occidentalis ( Merriam 1890) ; Myodes ochraceus (Miller 1894) ; Myodes pallescens (Hall and Cockrum 1940) ; Myodes paludicola (Doutt 1941) ; Myodes phaeus (Swarth 1911) ; Myodes proteus (Bangs 1897) ; Myodes pygmaeus (Rhoads 1894) ; Myodes rhoadsii (Stone 1893) ; Myodes rufescens (Smith 1940) ; Myodes rupicola (Poole 1949) ; Myodes saturatus (Rhoads 1894) ; Myodes soleus (Hall and Cockrum 1952) ; Myodes stikinensis (Hall and Cockrum 1952) ; Myodes uintaensis (Doutt 1941) ; Myodes ungava (Bailey 1897) ; Myodes wrangeli (Bailey 1897) .

Distribution: Most of Canada from N British Columbia to Labrador, excluding Newfoundland; south in the Appalachians to N Georgia and NW South Carolina ( Laerm et al., 1995), in the Great Plains to N Iowa, and in the Rockies to C New Mexico and EC Arizona, USA; extralimital isolates in NW and E Pennsylvania and S New Jersey.

Conservation: IUCN – Data Deficient as M. g. solus (sic), Lower Risk (nt) as C. g. maurus , otherwise Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Close relationship to, but genetic segregation from, M. rutilus supported by allozymic data ( Mezhzherin and Serbenyuk, 1992; Nadler et al., 1978), although some had earlier suggested, without presentation of data, that gapperi and rutilus are conspecific ( Bee and Hall, 1956; Youngman, 1975). In laboratory crosses with Eurasian M. glareolus , the partially infertile hybrids led Grant (1974) to view the two as semispecies of recent divergence. In a narrower taxonomic survey, Nadler et al. (1978) viewed Old World rufocanus as closely related to the New World gapperi rutilus complex, but broader analysis of allozyme polymorphisms indicated the gapperi rutilus clade to share common ancestry with glareolus centralis , not rufocanus ( Mezhzherin and Serbenyuk, 1992) .

Most highly variable in gastric morphology among species of Myodes studied by Carleton (1981) and differing from M. rutilus . See MacDonald and Cook (1996:579) for the need to clarify specific and intraspecific identities of populations occurring in the Alexander Archipelago and Alaska Panhandle. Genetic structuring and heterozygosity patterns studied in populations isolated in the S Appalachians by Reese et al. (2001). See account of M. californicus for allocation of occidentalis and caurinus to M. gapperi . See Merritt (1981, Mammalian Species, 146) .