Meriones (Pallasiomys) libycus Lichtenstein 1823

Meriones (Pallasiomys) libycus Lichtenstein 1823, Verz. Doublet. Zool. Mus . Univ. Berlin: 5.

Type Locality: "Libische Wuste" (Libyan Desert), as restricted by lectotype designation by Pavlinov (1982 c:1767); usually listed as Egypt, near Alexandria, due to the interpretation of Lichtenstein’s type locality by Chaworth-Musters and Ellerman (1947:485) .

Vernacular Names: Libyan Jird.

Synonyms: Meriones (Pallasiomys) afghanus Pavlinov and Rossolimo 1987; Meriones (Pallasiomys) amplus Ranck 1968; Meriones (Pallasiomys) aquilo Thomas 1912; Meriones (Pallasiomys) caucasicus (Satunin 1896); Meriones (Pallasiomys) caucasius Brandt 1855; Meriones (Pallasiomys) caudatus Thomas 1919; Meriones (Pallasiomys) collium Severtzov 1873; Meriones (Pallasiomys) confalonieri de Beaux 1931; Meriones (Pallasiomys) edithae Cheesman and Hinton 1924; Meriones (Pallasiomys) erythrourus (Gray 1842); Meriones (Pallasiomys) evelynae Cheesman and Hinton 1924; Meriones (Pallasiomys) eversmanni (Bogdanov 1889); Meriones (Pallasiomys) farsi Schlitter and Setzer 1973; Meriones (Pallasiomys) gaetulus Lataste 1882; Meriones (Pallasiomys) guyonii (Loche 1867); Meriones (Pallasiomys) heptneri Argyropulo 1936; Meriones (Pallasiomys) intermedius Gromov 1952; Meriones (Pallasiomys) iranensis Goodwin 1939; Meriones (Pallasiomys) luridus Ranck 1968; Meriones (Pallasiomys) marginae (Heptner 1933); Meriones (Pallasiomys) mariae Cabrera 1907; Meriones (Pallasiomys) maxeratis (Heptner 1933); Meriones (Pallasiomys) melanurus Rüppell 1842; Meriones (Pallasiomys) oxianus (Heptner 1933); Meriones (Pallasiomys) renaultii (Loche 1867); Meriones (Pallasiomys) schousboeii (Loche 1867); Meriones (Pallasiomys) schwarzovi Toktosunov 1977; Meriones (Pallasiomys) sogdianus (Heptner 1933); Meriones (Pallasiomys) syrius Thomas 1919; Meriones (Pallasiomys) tuareg Thomas 1925; Meriones (Pallasiomys) turfanensis (Satunin 1903) .

Distribution: North Africa from Western Sahara (Rio de Oro) and Morocco to Egypt, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and east through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and S Kazakhstan to W China (Xinjiang). A record from SE Anatolia has not been confirmed (Kryštufek and Vohralík, 2001).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Subgenus Pallasiomys . Reviewed by Corbet (1978 c) and Pavlinov et al. (1990). Regional studies cover populations in Morocco (Aulagnier and Thevenot, 1986), Algeria (Kowalski and Rzebik-Kowalska, 1991), Libya (Ranck, 1968, as caudatus), Egypt (Osborn and Helmy, 1980), Jordan (Qumsiyeh, 1996), Arabian Penninsula (Harrison and Bates, 1991), Iran (Lay, 1967; Morshed and Patton, 2002), Afghanistan (Hassinger, 1973), the Pribalkhashye region of S Kazakhstan (Burdelov et al., 1993, as erythrourus), Russia (Gromov and Erbajeva, 1995), and the Xinjiang Province of W China (Ma et al., 1987; Wang, 2003). Comparative craniometric analyses between Moroccan samples of M. libycus and M. shawi obtained in sympatry were reported by Zaime and Pascal (1988). Morphological and karyotypic contrasts between these same two species as well as laboratory hybridization experiments, were recorded by Lay and Nadler (1969). In North Africa, M. libycus inhabits the Sahara desert, but does extend to the Mediterranean in Morocco, Algeria, and Libya where it overlaps the distribution of M. shawi, which is primarily Mediterranean littoral (Lay and Nadler, 1969; Zaime and Pascal, 1988). Intrapopulation polymorphism of the 13 th heterochromatin chromosome among samples of M. libycus from Kazakhstan and its significance for reconstructing possible dispersal routes into C Asia is reported by Korobitsina and Kartavtseva (1992). Citations for synonyms among Russian samples were supplied by Pavlinov and Rossolimo (1987); afghanus is proposed as a new subspecies in that checklist. Schlitter and Setzer (1973) described farsi as a subspecies of M. erythrourus . Lay and Nadler (1969) also clarified why caudatus, used by Ranck (1968) as a species name for Libyan samples, simply refers to M. libycus . Corbet (1978 c:127), apparently unaware of the report by Lay and Nadler (1969), followed Ranck and listed caudatus as a species, but cautioned that caudatus may be "... conspecific with M. libycus and that the Libyan forms assigned by Ranck to M. libycus should really be allocated to M. shawi ." This is correct and restates the past confusion that has "... clouded the taxonomy of M. shawi and M. libycus because of uncertainty concerning the number of species in this complex and their nomenclature" (Lay and Nadler, 1969:44). Pavlinov (1982 c) documented the identity of erythrourus and caudatus with M. libycus, but Zhang et al. (1997) still recognized erythrourus as a separate species.