Spalacinae Gray 1821
Creators: name: Musser, Guy G.
name: Carleton, Michael D.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 1993
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Rodentia
Muridae

description: Subfamily Spalacinae Gray, 1821. London Med. Repos., 15:303. SYNONYMS: Aspalacidae. COMMENTS: Taxonomy and distribution reviewed by Ognev (1963a) and Corbet (1978c, 1984); subfamily monographed by Topachevskii (1969). For an introduction to morphology, taxonomy, and paleontology of European species, see Savie (1982a) and Kivanc (1988). Carleton and Musser (1984) provided a diagnosis of the subfamily and summarized general characters, distribution, taxonomy, and fossils; and Savie and Nevo (1990) gave an excellent synopsis of the evolutionary history, speciation, and population biology of mole rats. Catzeflis et al. (1989) used DNA-DNA hybridization to compare spalacines with arvicolines and murines to estimate their time of divergence. Vorontsov et al. (1977b) distinguished four species groups based upon biochemical data: <i>N. nehringi,</i> <i>N. leucodon, S. microphthalmus,</i> and the last containing S. <i>graecus</i> <i>,</i> <i>S. polonicus,</i> <i>S. arenarius,</i> and S. <i>giganteus.</i> The species defined biochemically are the same as those defined by Ognev (1963a) and Topachevskii (1969) using morphological traits and by Lyapunova et al. (1974) with chromosomal evidence. To these seven species is added <i>N. ehrenbergi.</i> Although Savie and Nevo (1990:133) acknowledged eight extant species, they concluded that the systematics is unrealistic because "it is based primarily on classical morphology, ignoring the central phenomenon of Spalacid evolution, i.e., chromosomal speciation which suggests that more than 30 living karyotypes, or species have been described and the end is not yet in sight." Results from sequencing alpha crystalline A chain, a lens protein of the eye in <i>Spalax,</i> and its significance for molecular clock hypothesis and phenetic analysis was discussed by McKenna (1992).
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 753, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7353098
description: {"references": ["Ognev, S. I. 1963 a. Mammals of the USSR and adjacent countries: Rodents (continued). (Mammals of eastern Europe and northern Asia) [A translation of S. I. Ognev, 1947, Zveri SSSR i prilezhashchikh stran: Gryzuny (prodolzhenie). (Zveri vostochnoi Evropy i severnoi Azii)]. Israel Program for Scientific Translations, Jerusalem, 5: 1 - 662.", "Corbet, G. B. 1978 c. The mammals of the Palaearctic region: A taxonomic review. British Museum (Natural History), London, 314 pp.", "Corbet, G. B. 1984. The mammals of the Palearctic region: A taxonomic review. Supplement. British Museum (Natural History), London, 45 pp.", "Topachevskii, V. A. 1969. Fauna SSSR, Mlekopitayushchie, Tom 3, vyp. 3. Slepyshovye (Spalacidae) [Fauna of the USSR: Mammals. Mole rats, Spalacidae]. Nauka Publishers, Leningrad Section, Leningrad, 248 pp.", "Kivanc, E. 1988. [Geographic variations of Turkish Spalax species (Spalacidae, Rodentia, Mammalia).] Biological Faculty, Ankara University, 88 pp. (in Turkish).", "Carleton, M. D., and G. G. Musser. 1984. Muroid rodents. Pp. 289 - 379, in Orders and families of Recent mammals of the world (S. Anderson and J. K. Jones, Jr., eds.). John Wiley and Sons, New York, 686 pp.", "Catzeflis, F. M., E. Nevo, J. E. Ahlquist, and C. G. Sibley. 1989. Relationships of the chromosomal species in the Eurasian mole rats of the Spalax ehrenbergi group as determined by DNA-DNA hybridization, and an estimate of the Spalacid-Murid divergence time. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 29: 223 - 232.", "Vorontsov, N. N., L. Ya. Martynova, and I. I. Fomichova. 1977 b. [An electrophoretic comparison of the blood proteins in mole rats of the fauna of the USSR (Spalacinae, Rodentia).] Zoologicheskii Zhurnal, 56: 1207 - 1215 (in Russian).", "Lyapunova, E. A., N. N. Vorontsov, and L. Ya. Martynova. 1974. Cytological differentiation of burrowing mammals in the Palaearctic. Pp. 203 - 215, in Symposium Theriologicum II (J. Kratochvil and R. Obrtel, eds.). Prague, 394 pp.", "McKenna, M. C. 1992. The alpha crystalline A chain of the eye lens and mammalian phylogeny. Annales Zooligici Fennici, 28: 349 - 360."]}