Spermophilopsis leptodactylus
Creators: name: Kryštufek, Boris
name: Mahmoudi, Ahmad
name: Tesakov, Alexey S.
name: Matějů, Jan
name: Hutterer, Rainer
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2015
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Rodentia
Sciuridae
Spermophilopsis
Spermophilopsis leptodactylus

description: Spermophilopsis leptodactylus (Lichtenstein): Long-clawed ground squirrel   
 Arctomys leptodactylus Lichtenstein, 1823, p. 119. Type locality is “140 Werst diesseits Buchara”, interpreted as “vicinity of Kara-Ata, 140 km north-west from Buchara, Uzbekistan ” (Ognev 1940: 452). Thorington et al. (2012: 202) erroneously fixed the type locality to “ Dagestan, Russia ”.   
Gromov and Erbajeva (1995) recognized three subspecies which differ in size and color.  
 Etymology. – “ Spermophilus ” (a genus of ground squirrels) from “sperma” (seed) and “phylos” (loving; both Greek) in allusion to the animal’s principal food+“opis” (Greek) “of appearance”; i.e. “of same appearance as ground squirrel”. The species name is from “leptos” (slender)+“dactylos” (finger, both Greek), on allusion on slender fingers bearing excessively long claws.   
 Diagnosis. – A large and short-tailed bristly ground squirrel with a seasonally dimorphic pelage (bristly and sparse in summer, long, dense and silky in winter); dorsal color is plain, with no stripes (Figure 3). The external ear is extremely reduced to a rounded thickened rim, the tragus and the antitragus however are present. Soles and plants are densely clothed with hair; the pollex is clawed; claws on the remaining digits are heavily thickened and enlarged (> 10 mm in length) (Figure 4); 1 tuft of supraorbital vibrissae. Melanocits are present in the cerebral dura mater (Sokolov 1963). Skull is wide and deep, with short braincase (Figure 6); external meatus acusticus has a bony tube; the parieto-interparietal suture is retained in adults; jugal bone has a short wedge-like extension between the lacrimal and maxillary (Figure 10); buccinator and masticatory foramina fused. Cheek-teeth are strongly hypsodont; the 3 rd upper premolar is present (Figure 8).   
Distribution. – The long-clawed ground squirrel is restricted to sandy deserts (“peski” in Russian) of Central Asia, from the Caspian Sea in the west to Lake Balkash in the east, and from the Sea of Aral in the north to northern Afghanistan in the south (Figure 9). The majority of distributional area is in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan.  
 Remarks. – Abundant information on various biological issues of Spermophilopsis leptodactylus exists in Russian (Sludskiy et al. 1969, Komarova 1980, Zubov and Svidenko 2005) which however is unknown to the English speaking community (cf. Thorington et al. 2012). For general review in English see Ognev (1966) and for a study of the ecology (in French) see RuŽić (1967).
description: Published as part of Kryštufek, Boris, Mahmoudi, Ahmad, Tesakov, Alexey S., Matějů, Jan & Hutterer, Rainer, 2016, A review of bristly ground squirrels Xerini and a generic revision in the African genus Xerus, pp. 521-540 in Mammalia (Warsaw, Poland) (Warsaw, Poland) 80 (5) on pages 535-536, DOI: 10.1515/mammalia-2015-0073, http://zenodo.org/record/10476681