Sicista subtilis (Pallas 1773)

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Dipodidae, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 871-893 : 890

Sicista subtilis (Pallas 1773)

[Mus] subtilis Pallas 1773 , Reise Prov. Russ. Reichs, Vol. 1, 2: 705.

Type Locality: Russia, Kurgan Oblast, on Tobol River near Kaminskaya Kur'ya (suburb), on road from Zverinogolovskoye to Kurgan ( Ognev, 1963 b:27) .

Vernacular Names: Southern Birch Mouse.

Synonyms: Sicista interstriatus (Petenyi 1882) ; Sicista interzonus (Petenyi 1882) ; Sicista lineatus (Lichtenstein 1823) ; Sicista loriger (Nathusius 1840) ; Sicista nordmanni ( Keyserling and Blasius 1840) ; Sicista pallida Kashkarov 1926 ; Sicista siberica Ognev 1935 ; Sicista tripartitus (Petenyi 1882) ; Sicista tristriatus (Petenyi 1882) ; Sicista trizona (Petenyi 1882) ; Sicista vagus (Pallas 1779) ; Sicista virgulosus (Petenyi 1882) .

Distribution: Steppes from SE Poland, Hungary, E Serbia, Romania and NE Bulgaria (see Mitchell-Jones, 1999, for European range) through S Russia, N Kazakhstan, and SW Siberia to the Altai Range, Lake Balkhash, Lake Baikal, and NW Xinjiang, China (Li and Wang, 1981; Ma et al., 1987; Wang, 2003; see distribution map for Chinese segment in Zhang et al., 1997). See Ilchenko and Volodin (1992), Kuznetsov (1965), Sludskii (1977) and Shenbrot et al. (1995) for range in Russia.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (nt).

Discussion: Holotype was probably not preserved ( Ognev, 1963 b:27). Karyology studied by Sokolov et al. (1986 a). Review and distribution in Europe provided by Pucek (1982; in Mitchell-Jones, 1999), in Serbia by Petrov (1992), and in Russia by Shenbrot et al. (1995). Chromosomal characteristics of samples of S. subtilis in S Russia (Volgograd and E Rostov Regions) where that species ranges close to S. severtzovi is documented by Koval’skaya et al. (2000). See comment under S. severtzovi . For synonyms see Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951) and Shenbrot et al. (1995).