Microtus (Pedomys) ochrogaster Wagner 1842

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 : 1009

Microtus (Pedomys) ochrogaster Wagner 1842

Microtus (Pedomys) ochrogaster Wagner 1842 , in: Schreber, Die Saugethiere, Suppl. 3: 592.

Type Locality: USA, Indiana, Posey Co., New Harmony (as fixed by Bole and Moulthrop, 1942:157).

Vernacular Names: Prairie Vole.

Synonyms: Microtus (Pedomys) austerus (Le Conte 1853) ; Microtus (Pedomys) cinnamonea (Biard 1858) ; Microtus (Pedomys) haydenii ( Baird 1857) ; Microtus (Pedomys) ludovicianus Bailey 1900 ; Microtus (Pedomys) minor (Merriam 1888) ; Microtus (Pedomys) ohioensis Bole and Moulthrop 1942 ; Microtus (Pedomys) similis Severinghaus 1977 ; Microtus (Pedomys) taylori Hibbard and Rinker 1943 .

Distribution: Northern and Central Great Plains— EC Alberta to S Manitoba, Canada; south to N Texas Panhandle ( Choate and Killebrew, 1991), SW Oklahoma ( Smith, 1992), and Arkansas; eastwards to C Tennessee, westernmost West Virginia, and W Ohio, USA; relictual populations in C Colorado, N New Mexico, and coastal prairies ( ludovicianus ) of SW Louisiana and adjacent Texas, USA.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Subgenus Pedomys , which has been employed as a subgenus of Microtus ( Bailey, 1900; R. A. Martin, 1995; Van der Meulen, 1978), as a full synonym of Microtus ( Hall, 1981) , or as a synonym of Pitymys whether ranked as a genus ( Repenning, 1983) or subgenus ( Hooper and Hart, 1962; Zagorodnyuk, 1990). The purported close affinity of M. (Pedomys) ochrogaster with North American pitymyine species (subgenus Pitymys ) has received little support from allozymic and gene-sequence studies ( Chaline and Graf, 1988; Conroy and Cook, 2000 a; Conroy et al., 2001; Moore and Janacek, 1990). R. A. Martin (1995) retained the two as indigenous North American subgenera based on cladistic analysis of dental traits.

Geographic variation over the Central Great Plains studied by Choate and Williams (1978). The strong morphometric segregation of minor from other M. ochrogaster advises renewed scrutiny of its status ( Severinghaus, 1977); also see remarks by R. A. Martin (1991) on the occurrence of "two size classes of M. ochrogaster " in certain late Pleistocene deposits and report of extensive heterochromatin variability by Modi (1993). Extralimital late Pleistocene records summarized by R. A. Martin (1991) and late Holocene occurrence reported for NW Wyoming ( Barnosky, 1994); chronological phyletic sequence of fossil taxa leading to M. ochrogaster postulated by R. A. Martin (1995). Includes ludovicianus , an isolated form of the coastal prairies formerly considered a separate species and now apparently extinct ( Lowery, 1974). See Stalling (1990, Mammalian Species, 355) .