Spermophilus erythrogenys Brandt, 1841 . Bull. Acad. Sci. St. Petersb., p. 43.

TYPE LOCALITY: U.S. S. R., Tomsk. Obi., foothills of Altai Mtns., near Barnaul .

DISTRIBUTION: E. Kazakhstan and S.W. Siberia (U.S. S. R.); Sinkiang (China). Isolated population ( pallidicauda) in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia (China).

COMMENT: Includes brevicauda (^intermedins), carruthersi, and pallidicauda; subgenus Colobotis; see Gromov et al., 1965:315. Hall, 1981:381, included Colobotis in subgenus Spermophilus . Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951:508, 511, regarded brevicauda and carruthersi as synonyms of pygmaeus, and pallidicauda as a full species. Sludskii et al., 1969, [Mammals of Kazakhstan], vol. 1, “Nauka”, Alma-Ata, p. 177, considered intermedius (=brevicauda) a full species. Provisionally included in major by Corbet, 1978:84; but see Gromov et al., 1965:315, Vorontsov and Lyapunova, 1970, Byull. Mosk. Ova. Ispyt. Prir. Otd. Biol., 75: 122-136, and 1976, pp. 337-353, in Beringia in Cenozoic, V. Kontrimavichus, ed., Acad. Sci., Vladivostok, for evidence of specific distinctness.

ISIS NUMBER: 5301410002032017001 as S. pallidicauda .