Spalax giganteus Nehring 1898

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Spalacidae, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 907-926 : 919

Spalax giganteus Nehring 1898

Spalax giganteus Nehring 1898 , Sitzb. Ges. Naturf. Fr. Berlin: 169.

Type Locality: Russia, Daghestan, W shore of Caspian Sea, near Makhachkala (see Topachevskii, 1969).

Vernacular Names: Giant Blind Mole Rat.

Distribution: Steppes north of the Caucuses and west of the Caspian Sea ( Puzachenko, 1993). Distribution summarized by other researchers includes the Kazakhstan S. uralensis ( Gromov and Erbajeva, 1995; Topachevskii, 1969; Vorontsov et al., 1977 b).

Conservation: IUCN – Vulnerable.

Discussion: Once included in S. microphthalmus ( Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951) , but revised by Topachevskii (1969) as a separate species and listed as such by Pavlinov and Rossolimo (1987, 1998) and Pavlinov et al. (1995 a). Geographic range is parapatric with that of S. microphthalmus ( Corbet, 1978 c) . The taxon uralensis has usually been included in S. giganteus (e. g., Gromov and Erbajeva, 1995; Topachevskii, 1969; Vorontsov et al., 1977 b), but analyses of cranial dimensions and proportions indicated significant differences between populations from west of the Caspian Sea ( giganteus ) and the isolated segment in Kazakhstan ( uralensis ) and prompted the recognition of uralensis as a species ( Puzachenko, 1993), an arrangement anticipated by Topachevskii (1969) and accepted by Pavlinov et al. (1995 a) and Pavlinov and Rossolimo (1998). Chromosomal traits (2n = 64, FN = 124) documented by Lyapunova et al. (1974). Reviewed by Gromov and Erbajeva (1995, Russian segment).