Acomys (Acomys) nesiotes Bate 1903

Acomys (Acomys) nesiotes Bate 1903, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 7, 11: 565.

Type Locality: Cyrus, Kernyia Hills, near Dikomo.

Vernacular Names: Cyprus Spiny Mouse.

Distribution: Cyprus; see in Bates (1994).

Conservation: IUCN – Data Deficient.

Discussion: Subgenus Acomys . Originally described as a species, subsequently listed as a subspecies of A. dimidiatus (Ellerman, 1941) or included in A. cahirinus (Corbet, 1978 c), but again treated as a species (Spitzenberger, 1978 b). Standard karyotype (2n=38) described by Zahavi and Wahrman (1956) and Zima et al. (1999 b); chromosomal banding pattern similar to the Turkish A. cilicicus and Egyptian A. cahirinus (Zima et al., 1999 b) . This association corroborated by mtDNA cytochrome b sequences (Barome et al., 2001 a) and breeding experiments (Frynta and Sádlová, 1998); the Crete, Cyprus, and Turkish species join A. cahirinus in a monophyletic clade to the exclusion of that formed by samples of A. dimidiatus or other species of Acomys sampled. See accounts of A. cilicicus and A. minous for additional discussion.