Gerbillus (Gerbillus) nigeriae Thomas and Hinton 1920

Gerbillus (Gerbillus) nigeriae Thomas and Hinton 1920, Novit. Zool., 27: 317.

Type Locality: Nigeria, Farniso, near Kano.

Vernacular Names: Nigerian Gerbil.

Distribution: Recorded from Niger, N Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and SW Mauritania.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Subgenus Gerbillus . Lay (1983) maintained this species as valid even though it has been synonymized with G. agag by some workers (Pavlinov et al., 1990; F. Petter, 1975 b). Complex chromosomal polymorphism characterizes G. nigeriae (Volobouev et al., 1988 b), and left-handed Z-DNA was detected in metaphasic chromosomes in one sample (Viegas-Péquignot et al., 1982). Karyotypic sampling from Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Mauritania exhibit impressive variation in 2n (60-74) and FNa (116-114) (Dobigny et al., 2002 b; Gautun et al., 1985; Granjon et al. 1997 a; Tranier, 1975 a; Volobouev et al., 1988 b). Ecology and membership in small mammal community of coastal SW Mauritania documented by Granjon et al. (2002 b). Gerbillus nigeriae is regarded as one of the nine unambiguously identified species of gerbils occurring in the West African Sahelian zone (Granjon et al., 2002 a).