Microtus leucurus (Blyth, 1863)

Guy G. Musser & Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 501-755 : 523

Microtus leucurus (Blyth, 1863) . J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 32:89.

TYPE LOCALITY: India, Ladakh, near Lake Chomoriri (= Tsomoriri) .

DISTRIBUTION: Chinese provinces of S Qinghai ( Zheng and Wang, 1980) and Xizang ( Feng et al., 1986) on the Tibetan Plateau, and high altitudes in the Himalayas west to Kashmir (see Niethammer, 1970).

SYNONYMS: everesti , petulans, strauchi , waltoni , zadoensis.

COMMENTS: Classified by Zagorodnyuk (1990) under the subgenus Phaiomys of the genus Neodon ; others have recognized Phaiomys as a genus ( Repenning et al., 1990). Whatever its ranking, leucurus may date from the early evolution of the genus, as suggested by its association with the late Pliocene Allophaiomys , a taxon regarded by most as ancestral to Microtus (see Martin, 1989b; Repenning et al., 1990). As classified in the genus Microtus , this species can still be called leucurus ; the older leucurus Gerbe, 1852 , is a synonym of nivalis , a species which has been reallocated from Microtus to Chionomys (see that account).