Gerbilliscus (Taterona) brantsii (Smith 1836)

[Gerbilliscus (Taterona)] brantsii (Smith 1836), Rept. Exped. Exploring Central Africa: 43.

Type Locality: South Africa, Ladybrand, E Free State Province, near Lesotho border (see Meester et al., 1986, for details).

Vernacular Names: Highveld Gerbil.

Synonyms: Gerbilliscus (Taterona) breyeri (Roberts 1926); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) draco (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) griquae (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) humpatensis (Hill and Carter 1937); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) joanae (Thomas 1926); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) maccalinus (Sundevall 1847); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) maputa (Roberts 1936); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) miliaria (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) montanus (A. Smith 1842); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) namaquensis (Shortridge and Carter 1938); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) natalensis (Roberts 1929); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) perpallida (Dollman 1910); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) ruddi (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) tongensis (Roberts 1931) .

Distribution: Subtropical and wooded grasslands of South Africa (most of country except southern region; see Perrin, 1997 h; Skinner and Smithers, 1990; and Taylor, 1998), W Zimbabwe (Smithers and Wilson, 1979), Botswana (Smithers, 1971), C and E Namibia (Skinner and Smithers, 1990), S Angola (Crawford-Cabral, 1998), and SW Zambia (Ansell, 1978).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc) as Tatera brantsii .

Discussion: Subgenus Taterona . Taxonomy and distribution summarized by Meester et al. (1986), who assigned the species to the G. afra group. Geographic variation in protein and enzyme markers among samples from Lesotho was reported by Maurer et al. (1976). Pre- and postmating isolation in karyotypically identical G. afra and G. brantsii documented by Dempster (1996; see account of G. afra). The Angolan humpatensis was described as a species (Hill and Carter, 1937) but subsequently listed as a subspecies of G. brantsii (F. Petter, 1975 b) or a possible subspecies of G. leucogaster (Crawford-Cabral, 1986), or simply included in G. brantsii (Pavlinov et al., 1990) . Crawford-Cabral (1988, 1998) and Crawford-Cabral and Pacheco (1991) treated humpatensis as a relict species surviving only in the Humpata highlands, a view requiring better documentation. There is significant geographic variation in chromatic and morphological traits within what is now called G. brantsii and some populations are isolated (F. Petter, 1975 b); perhaps humpatensis refers to one of those isolated fragments but its status can only be documented by a careful revisionary study incorporating samples of G. brantsii from throughout its geographic range. Southern African population reviewed by Perrin (1997 h) and Skinner and Smithers (1990).