Gerbilliscus (Taterona) leucogaster (Peters 1852)

[Gerbilliscus (Taterona)] leucogaster (Peters 1852), Bericht Verhandl. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 17: 274.

Type Locality: Mozambique, north of Zambezi River, Mesuril (as restricted by Davis, 1949:1004).

Vernacular Names: Bushveld Gerbil.

Synonyms: Gerbilliscus (Taterona) angolae (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) bechuanae (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) beirae (Roberts 1951); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) beirensis (Roberts 1929); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) kaokoensis Lehmann 1955; Gerbilliscus (Taterona) limpopoensis (Roberts 1929); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) littoralis (Roberts 1929); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) lobengulae (De Winton 1898); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) mashonae (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) mitchelli (Roberts 1929); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) ndolae (Kershaw 1922); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) nigrotibialis (Monard 1933); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) nyasae (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) panja (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) pestis (Roberts 1929); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) pretoriae (Roberts 1929); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) salsa (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) schinzi (Noack 1889); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) shirensis (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) stellae (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) tenuis (Peters 1852); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) tzaneenensis (Roberts 1929); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) waterbergensis (Roberts 1938); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) zuluensis (Roberts 1931) .

Distribution: N and W South Africa (see Perrin, 1997 f; Skinner and Smithers, 1990; Taylor,F 1998), Mozambique (including islands in the Bazaruto Arch. off the coast of S Mozambique; Downs and Wirminghaus [1997], Smithers and Lobao Tello, 1976), Zimbabwe (Smithers and Wilson, 1979), Botswana, Namibia (Griffin, 1990), Malawi (Denys et al., 1999), Zambia (Ansell, 1978), Angola (Crawford-Cabral, 1998), SW Tanzania (Davis, 1975 a), and S Dem. Rep. Congo (Davis, 1975 a).

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

Discussion: Subgenus Taterona . Taxonomy and distribution summarized by Meester et al. (1986), who included this species in the G. robustus group. Nongeographic variation in Botswana sample analyzed by Swanepoel et al. (1979). Discriminant function analyses contrasting Angolan G. validus and G. leucogaster documented by Crawford-Cabral and Pacheco (1991). Southern African Subregion populations reviewed by Perrin (1997 f) and Skinner and Smithers (1990).