Meriones (Pallasiomys) arimalius Cheesman and Hinton 1924

Meriones (Pallasiomys) arimalius Cheesman and Hinton 1924, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 9, 14: 554.

Type Locality: Saudi Arabia, Yabrin (Jabrin), Djebel Agoula.

Vernacular Names: Arabian Jird.

Distribution: "Northern sands of the Rub al Khali in Saudi Arabia and Oman " (Harrison and Bates, 1991:297).

Conservation: IUCN – Endangered.

Discussion: Subgenus Pallasiomys . Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951) listed arimalius as a valid species, but it was later included in M. libycus (Corbet, 1978 c; Harrison and Bates, 1991). Pavlinov et al. (1990:294) reinstated arimalius as a separate species and reviewed its salient characters. Even from the terse description of its diagnostic traits provided by Harrison and Bates (1991:297), who recognized the form as a subspecies of M. libycus, it is evident that arimalius is morphologically different from populations of lybicus north of it in Saudi Arabia. The species was also considered distinct by Nadler and Lay (1967).