Meriones meridianus
Creators: name: Musser, Guy G.
name: Carleton, Michael D.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 1993
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Rodentia
Muridae
Meriones
Meriones meridianus

description: <i>Meriones meridianus</i> (Pallas, 1773). Reise Prov. Russ. Reichs., p. 702. TYPE LOCALITY: Astrakhanskaya Oblast, Dosang (as restricted by Heptner, <i>in</i> Vinogradov et al., 1936, not Chaworth-Musters and Ellerman, 1947 —see Pavlinov and Rossolimo, 1987). DISTRIBUTION: From Lower Don River and N of the Caucasus to Mongolia and the Chinese provinces of Xinjiang, Qinghai, Shanxi and Hebei, south to E Iran and N Afghanistan. The isolated segment in Armenia mentioned by Corbet (1978c) refers to <i>M. dahli</i> (see that account). SYNONYMS: <i>auceps, brevicaudatus, buechneri, cryptorhinus, fulvus, heptneri, jei, karelini, lepturus, littoralis, massagetes, muleiensis, nogaiorum, penicilliger, psamntophilus, roborowskii, shitkovi, tropini, urianchaicus, uschtaganicus, zhitkovi.</i> COMMENTS: Subgenus <i>Pallasiomys.</i> The significance of intraspecific chromosomal variation among Russian samples was reported by Korobitsyna and Kartavtseva (1988). Utilizing several sets of data, including results from hybridization studies, Dyatlov and Avanyan (1987) tested conspecificity of the subspecies <i>meridianus, nogaiorum,</i> and <i>dahli,</i> and concluded that <i>nogaiorum</i> should be considered a semispecies and <i>dahli</i> a species (see that account). We retain <i>nogaiorum</i> in <i>M. meridianus</i> pending unequivocable results demonstrating its evolutionary status. The Xinjiang population was discussed by Ma et al. (1987).
description: Published as part of <i>Guy G. Musser &amp; Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, pp. 501-755 in Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London :Smithsonian Institution Press</i> on page 557, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7353098
description: {"references": ["Vinogradov, B. S., A. I. Argyropulo, and V. G. Heptner. 1936. [Rodents of the Central Asiatic part of USSR.] Akademiya Nauk SSSR, Moscow, 228 pp. (in Russian).", "Chaworth-Musters, J. L., and J. R. Ellerman. 1947. A revision of the genus Meriones. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 117: 478 - 504.", "Pavlinov, I. Ya., and O. L. Rossolimo. 1987. Sistematika mlekopitayushchikh SSSR [Systematics of the mammals of the USSR.]. Moscow University Press, Moscow, 282 pp. (in Russian).", "Corbet, G. B. 1978 c. The mammals of the Palaearctic region: A taxonomic review. British Museum (Natural History), London, 314 pp.", "Korobitsyna, K. V., and I. V. Kartavtseva. 1988. [Variation and evolution of the karyotype of gerbils (Rodentia, Cricetidae, Gerbillinae). I. Karyotypic differentiation of midday gerbils (Meriones meridianus) of the USSR fauna.] Zoologicheskii Zhurnal, 67: 1889 - 1899 (in Russian).", "Dyatlov, A. I., and L. A. Avanyan. 1987. [Substantiation of species rank for two subspecies of gerbils (Meriones, Cricetidae, Rodentia).] Zoologicheskii Zhurnal, 66: 1069 - 1074 (in Russian).", "Ma Yong, Wang Feng-gui, Jin Shan-ke, and Li Si-hua. 1987. [Glires (rodents and lagomorphs) of Northern Xinjiang and their zoogeographical distribution.] Science Press, Academia Sinica, Beijing, 274 pp. (in Chinese)."]}