Gerbilliscus (Taterona) kempi Wroughton 1906

Gerbilliscus (Taterona) kempi Wroughton 1906, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 7, 17: 375.

Type Locality: Nigeria, Aguleri.

Vernacular Names: Northern Savanna Gerbil.

Synonyms: Gerbilliscus (Taterona) beniensis (Hatt 1935); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) benvenuta (Hinton and Kershaw 1920); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) dichrura (Thomas 1915); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) dundasi (Wroughton 1909); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) flavipes (Allen 1914); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) gambiana (Thomas 1910); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) giffardi (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) hopkinsoni (Thomas 1911); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) lucia (Hinton and Kershaw 1920); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) nigrita (Wroughton 1906); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) ruwenzorii (Thomas and Wroughton 1910); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) smithi (Wroughton 1909); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) soror (Allen 1914); Gerbilliscus (Taterona) welmani (St. Leger 1929) .

Distribution: Throughout Subsaharan northern savannas from Senegal (Duplantier and Granyon, 1992, as gambiana) and Guinea (Mt Nimba) through Burkina Faso, S Mali (Meinig, 2000), Nigeria, S Niger, N Cameroon, S Chad, Central African Republic, S Sudan, S Ethiopia, Uganda, and NE Dem. Rep. Congo to SW Kenya (west of Eastern Rift Valley); see Bates (1988).

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

Discussion: Subgenus Taterona . Bates (1988) treated kempi as a subspecies of G. validus (as did Davis, 1975 a), distinguishing it from validus by the different conformation of the anterior lamina (anteroconid) on first lower molar. The pattern in kempi is characteristic of all samples from the northern savanna (Senegal to SW Kenya), the configuration in validus typifies specimens from the southern savanna (Angola to S Kenya east of Rift Valley), a dichotomy also documented by F. Petter (1959) and Davis (1966, 1975 a). For Bates, the two populations are geographically discrete and best treated as distinct subspecies, "although the exact rank in the taxonomic hierarchy of such allopatric populations is difficult to determine" (Bates, 1988:277). Current evidence supports the hypothesis that each is a species, an arrangement that can be tested with other kinds of data and additional samples from relevant locations. Rosevear (1969) recognized kempi, hopkinsoni, and welmanni as separate species within West Africa, but commented that hopkinsoni and welmanni were probably only subspecifically distinct; Pavlinov et al. (1990) listed these names in the synonymy of G. validus . Chromosomal data reported from samples collected in Burkina Faso (Gautun et al., 1985, as hopkinsoni), Mt Nimba in Guinea (Gautun et al., 1986, as either kempi or hopkinsoni), Benin (Codjia et al., 1994), Niger (Dobigny et al., 2002 b, as Tatera gambiana), and Ethiopia (Bulatova et al., 2002, as Tatera valida). Populations from Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Gambia reviewed by Grubb et al. (1998). Morphometric and ecological data recorded by Ryan and Attuquayefio (2000) for sample from S Ghana, and ecological information documented by Decher and Bahian (1999) for population on Accra Plains of S Ghana. Swimming ability tested by Duplantier and Bâ (2001, as gambiana) in context of assessing capability for colonizing islands off coast of Senegal and crossing inland waterways.