Subfamily Arvicolinae Gray, 1821 . London Med. Repos., 15:303.

SYNONYMS: Alticoli, Bramini, Clethrionomyini, Dicrostonychinae, Ellobiini, Fibrini, Lagurini, Lemminae, Microtinae, Microtoscoptini, Myodini, Neofibrini, Ondatrini, Phenacomyini, Pitymyini, Pliomyini, Pliophenacomyini, Prometheomyinae, Synaptomyini.

COMMENTS: See Kretzoi (1962, 1969) for use of Arvicolinae Gray, 1821, instead of Microtinae Miller, 1896; a group concept of arvicoline rodents actually had emerged long prior to Miller's (1896) seminal monograph (e.g., Murray, 1866; Alston, 1876). Carleton and Musser (1984) provided a general diagnosis and review of the limits and contents of the subfamily. Synthetic regional taxonomic treatments include: Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951), Corbet (1978c, 1984), and Agadzhanyan and Yatsenko (1984) for Palaearctic species; Ognev (1963b, 1964), Gromov and Polyakov (1977), and Pavlinov and Rossolimo (1987) for Asian forms; Niethammer and Krapp (1982a) for European species; and Hall and Cockrum (1953) and Hall (1981) for North American voles and lemmings. Biochronology of arvicolines in the northern hemisphere was comprehensively reviewed by Repenning et al. (1990) and Repenning (1990, and references therein).

Broad, multispecies surveys have been undertaken on morphological and biochemical systems of arvicolines that bear on issues of their phenetic divergence and phylogenetic relationships. For example, comparative and functional studies of the dentition (Hinton, 1926; Koenigswald, 1980, 1982; Miller, 1896); of the cranium (Gromov, 1990; Kratochvil, 1982a; Pietsch, 1980); of middle ear anatomy (Hooper, 1968a; Pavlinov, 1984); of cutaneous and subcutaneous glands (Quay, 1954a, 1968; Sokolov and Dzhemukhadze, 1991); of myology (Kesner, 1980, 1986; Repenning, 1968; Stein, 1986, 1987); of the digestive tract (Carleton, 1981; Quay, 1954b; Vorontsov, 1979); and of reproductive structures (Anderson, 1960; Hooper and Hart, 1962; Niethammer, 1972). Molecular studies that address phylogenetic questions have assessed allozymic variation (Chaline and Graf, 1988; Gill et al., 1987; Graf, 1982; Moore and Janecek, 1990), DNA-DNA hybridization (Catzeflis, 1990; Catzeflis et al., 1987), and chromosomal morphology and banding patterns (Burgos et al., 1989; Modi, 1987; Radosavlievic et al., 1990; Zagorodnyuk, 1990, 1991 c; Zima and Krâl, 1984a).

The proliferation of family-group names, practically a one-to-one correspondence with recognized genera, does not necessarily connote unambiguous delineation of higher-order relationships—e.g., compare the tribal contents of Ognev (1963b), Hooper and Hart (1962), Kretzoi (1969), Gromov and Polyakov (1977), and Repenning et al. (1990). See Kretzoi (1969), Chaline (1972), and Gromov and Polyakov (1977) for authorship of synonyms, for the most part used at the tribal level.