Genus Apodemus Kaup, 1829

The records for A. sylvaticus in Korea are based on specimens collected in the 1960s (Lee & Lim 1974). Since then, few were observed or collected, and the presence of A. sylvaticus in Korea appears questionable (Han 1994, 2004c). We regard these records as erroneous identifications of A. peninsulae . The identifications of A. sylvaticus were based on the presence of a long tail, long hind foot and long ears (especially the tail longer than the head-body length), but measurements overlapped those of A. peninsulae, previously a subspecies of A. sylvaticus and later a subspecies of A. speciosus . Also, the location of Korea is substantially beyond the eastern limit of the distribution for A. sylvaticus . Thus, we removed Apodemus (or Sylvaemus) sylvaticus (Linnaeus, 1758) from the list of Korean mammals.

Although some references used chejuensis as a subspecies of A. agrarius, we considered A. chejuensis a distinct species because a reproductive barrier was confirmed between the two species (Jo et al. 2017b). Thus, we list three species of Apodemus in Korea.