Apodemus peninsulae Thomas 1906

Apodemus peninsulae Thomas 1906, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1906: 862.

Type Locality: Korea, 110 mi SE of Seoul, Mingyoung.

Vernacular Names: Korean Field Mouse.

Synonyms: Apodemus giliacus (Thomas 1907); Apodemus major (Radde 1862); Apodemus majusculus (Turov 1924); Apodemus nigritalus Hollister 1913; Apodemus praetor Miller 1914; Apodemus qinghaiensis Feng, Zheng and Wu 1983; Apodemus rufulus (Dukelski 1928); Apodemus sowerbyi Jones 1956; Apodemus tscherga (Kastchenko 1899) .

Distribution: A northern segment in S Siberia from Altai Mtns in the west to Ussuri region in the east (Gromov and Erbajeva, 1995; Reiter et al., 1995, who documented occurrence on Svjatoj Nos peninsula and isthmus in Lake Baikal), and the Russian island of Sakhalin (Abe et al., 1996) and Japanese island of Hokkaido (Dobson, 1994; Kaneko, 1994); an eastern arm ranging south through E Mongolia and NE China (Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, and E Nei Mongol), and the Korean Peninsula (Won and Smith, 1999); then extending westward through N China (Shanxi, Shaanxi, SE Gansu to SE Qinghai), and south through SW Sichuan to NW Yunnan and E Xizang (Tibet). We are unaware of any records south of NW Yunnan and west of about 92° E longitude. Musser and Carleton (1993) incorrectly included the Chinese province of Xinjiang within the range, but only A. agrarius and A. uralensis (recorded as A. sylvaticus tsherga) are known from that region (Ma et al., 1987). The distribution outlined here is based upon our study of museum specimens (Musser et al., 1996) and the references cited above, and is similar to the distribution described by Wang (2003) and Zhang et al. (1997).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Apodemus group. Usually considered a member of subgenus Alsomys (Pavlinov et al., 1995 a) but placed in subgenus Apodemus by Pavlinov and Rossolimo (1987) and Mezhzherin and Zykov (1991), and included in an Apodemus Group by Musser et al. (1996) based upon morphology, which has been consistently corroborated by analyses of allozymes and sequences from mtDNA cytochrome b and nuclear DNA (Chelomina, 1998; Chelomina et al., 1998 b; Filippucci et al., 2002; Liu et al, 2004; Mezhzherin, 1997 a; Michaux et al., 2002 a; Seriwaza et al., 2000; Suzuki et al., 2003). The Chinese qinghaiensis was described as a subspecies (Feng et al., 1983). Corbet (1978 c) listed nigritalus as a synonym of A. sylvaticus, but the holotype is A. peninsulae (Musser and Carleton, 1993; Musser et al., 1996; Pavlinov and Rossolimo, 1987). Apodemus peninsulae is sympatric with the smaller-bodied A. uralensis in the Altai region, which Hollister (1913 b) had noted (but under different names; see Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951:567). In a revision of N Eurasian species of Apodemus, Mezhzherin (1997 a) used the older name major instead of peninsulae, but major is twice preoccupied (see Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951:566).

Available chromosomal information consists of karyotype description (Chen et al., 1996), and B-chromosomal analyses and references to chromosomal studies of A. peninsulae (Bekasova et al., 1980; Borisov and Malygin, 1991; Karamysheva et al., 2002; Kartavtseva et al., 2000; Kolomiets et al., 1988). Biochemical systematics and biogeographical implications in reference to A. speciosus and the Hokkaido giliacus reported by Saitoh et al. (1989), who also reviewed the contrasting treatment of giliacus as either a subspecies of A. peninsulae or a separate species. Molecular and chromosomal variation along with its geographic significance investigated (under the name Alsomys major) by Mezhzherin (2001 a). Korean samples have been the subject of studies involving variation of mtDNA restriction fragments (Koh et al., 1995 b) and morphometric and chromosomal analyses (Koh, 1988); morphometric variation among Chinese and Korean samples elucidated by Koh and Lee (1994) and Koh et al. (1996). The latter authors included a sample from NE Xinjiang in their study, but its much smaller body size compared with their other samples of true peninsulae from E China and Korea suggests their Xinjiang sample represents the small-bodied A. uralensis, which occurs in the region. Phylogenetic analyses of mtDNA cytochrome b and nuclear IRBP sequences isolated A. peninsulae as a separate lineage in a larger clade containing A. speciosus, an A. agrarius and A. chevrieri cluster, and a A. draco, A. semotus, and A. latronum group, which represents an evolutionary lineage separate from the more ancient radiations producing the Nepalese A. gurkha and Japanese A. argenteus (Suzuki, et al., 2003). Liu et al. (2004) could not resolve phylogenetic affinities among A. peninsulae, A. speciosus, A. chevreri, and A. agrarius using complete mtDNA cytochrome b sequences. Musser et al. (1996) outlined the pattern of geographic variation derived from qualitative inspection of their material, which is similar to that revealed by multivariate analysis of morphometric variation (Koh and Lee, 1994; Koh et al., 1996).

The taxon tscherga has been treated as a subspecies of A. sylvaticus (Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951; Liu et al., 2002; Ma et al., 1987; Pavlinov and Rossolimo, 1987) or a synonym of either A. uralensis (Musser and Carleton, 1993) or A. peninsulae (Corbet, 1978 c) . Mezhzherin (1997 a) explained that its original description suggested a composite of A. sylvaticus and A. peninsulae, but Kuznetzov studied the type series and identified all the specimens as A. peninsulae (or A. major, the name preferred by the Russians). Fragments identified as A. peninsulae have been recovered from late Pleistocene cave sediments in the Sichuan-Quizhou region of S China (Zheng, 1993) and fissure fillings in the Shandong area (Zheng et al., 1997).