Eliomys Wagner 1840

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Gliridae, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 819-840 : 830

Eliomys Wagner 1840

Eliomys Wagner 1840 , Gelehrte. Anz. I. K. Bayer. Akad. Wiss., Munchen, 8 (37): 297.

Type Species: Eliomys melanurus Wagner 1840

Synonyms: Bifa Lataste 1885 .

Species and subspecies: 3 species:

Species Eliomys melanurus Wagner 1840

Species Eliomys munbyanus Pomel 1856

Species Eliomys quercinus ( Linnaeus 1766)

Discussion: See Kryštufek and Kraft (1997) for clarification of the publication date for Eliomys Wagner (1839 vs. 1840). Vocalization data reviewed by Hutterer and Peters (2001). Evolutionary patterns of dental morphology during Pliocene and Pleistocene discussed by Nadachowski and Daoud (1995). Dobson (1998) speculated that Eliomys probably reached Africa at least two times, once during the Messinian from Iberia, and later during the late Pleistocene from the eastern Mediterranean. Multiple colonizations may account for the lack of morphometric cohesion among what are presumed to be conspecific North African populations of E. munbyanus (the Tunisian population, for example). It is generally (but not universally) accepted that Dryomys is the closest living relative of Eliomys (see comments under Subfamily Leithiinae and references therein). However, phylogenetic analyses of nuclear DNA fragments and 12S rRNA sequences clearly identified Eliomys and Dryomys as sister-genera within a major evolutionary lineage that includes Myomimus and Muscardinus ( Montgelard et al., 2003) .