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HOME --> CLASS MAMMALIA
--> ORDER RODENTIA
--> SUBORDER MYOMORPHA
--> SUPERFAMILY Muroidea
--> FAMILY Cricetidae
--> SUBFAMILY Arvicolinae
GENUS Ellobius
| Author: | Fischer, 1814. | | Citation: | Zoognosia, 3: 72. | | Type Species: | Mus talpinus Pallas, 1770. | | Comments: | Ellobiusini (emended by Pavlinov et al., 1995a, because Ellobiini Gill 1872 is a junior homonym of Ellobiinae Adams, 1858, whose type genus Ellobium is a mollusk). Gromov and Polyakov (1977) excluded Ellobius from arvicolines; Pavlinov and Rossolimo (1987) viewed the genus as Cricetidae incertae sedis, questioning whether it belonged in Arvicolinae or Cricetinae; and Gromov and Erbajeva (1995) included it in Cricetinae. Most workers, however, have recognized Ellobius, albeit highly specialized morphologically, as the only extant member of a tribe within Arvicolinae (Corbet, 1978c; Hooper and Hart, 1962; Kretzoi, 1969; McKenna and Bell, 1997; Pavlinov and Rossolimo, 1998; Pavlinov et al., 1995a; Topachevskii and Rekovets, 1982), an affiliation supported by DNA sequence (Just et al., 1995) and allozymic analyses (Mezhzherin et al., 1995). Ultrastructure and evolution of sex chromosomes discussed by Kolomiets et al. (1991). Two subgenera are recognized, Ellobius and Afganomys; Zagorodnyuk (1990) listed the latter as a genus. Topachevskii and Rekovets (1982) documented morphological trends and interspecific interpretations from the late Pliocene to Recent. The present range of Ellobius is only part of a wider distribution that once embraced Israel and North Africa in the middle to late Pleistocene (Jaeger, 1988a). |
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