Talpa streetorum Lay, 1965

Gündüz, İslam, Demirtaş, Sadık, Silsüpür, Metin, Özmen, Medine, Polly, P. David & Bilton, David T., 2023, Notes from the Anatolian underground: two new mole taxa from Eastern Turkey, together with a revised phylogeny of the genus Talpa (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla: Talpidae), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 199 (3), pp. 567-593 : 589

Talpa streetorum Lay, 1965

Talpa streeti Lay, 1965 incorrect original spelling.

Type locality: Iran, Kurdistan Province, Hezar Darreh , 35°25ʹN, 47°07ʹE, 2180 m ( Fig. 1 , Table 1 ) .

Material examined: We examined the dry-preserved skulls of five specimens from the type series, housed in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, with specimen numbers 96421-96425. Of these, the holotype is 96424. In addition, we examined a further dry-preserved skull of T. streetorum from Divandarreh in Iranian Kurdistan, close to the type locality, labelled 111007. Our study is restricted to skull characters, as skins and other body parts were preserved in alcohol and so are unlikely to retain their original coloration and dimensions well. Collection of topotypical specimens in the future would allow these features to be better documented, as they are also missing from the original description ( Lay 1965) .

Measurements of holotype

Condylobasal length of skull 32.51 mm, maxillary tooth row 14.33 mm, breadth of braincase 16.42 mm, height of braincase 10.13 mm, breadth of rostrum over canines 5.07 mm, breadth of rostrum over molars 10.53 mm (Supporting Information, Table S3).

Measurements of paratypes

Means ± standard deviation (minimum–maximum). Linear measurements are in mm. Sample size = 4 for all measurements. Condylobasal length of skull 32.20 ± 0.600 (31.55–32.96), maxillary tooth row 14.23 ± 0.160 (14.08–14.44), breadth of braincase 16.75 ± 0.180 (16.59–17.00), height of braincase 9.76 ± 0.320 (9.34–10.01), breadth of rostrum over canines 5.00 ± 0.140 (4.79–5.10), breadth of rostrum over molars 10.64 ± 0.230 (10.44–10.97) (Supporting Information, Table S3, for measurements including additional FMNH specimen 111007).

Diagnosis

Very large mole; skull large with a stout, broad, rostrum, closest in overall appearance to T. hakkariensis sp. nov. (compare Figs 7 and 10 ). Upper premolars 1–3 and lower premolars 2–3 peglike, and 1st upper molar with at most trace of parastyle cusp, as in T. hakkariensis sp. nov. (see Fig. 11 ). Differs from T. hakkariensis sp. nov. in having multiple mandibular foramina and a broader base to the coronoid process ( Fig. 13D ). Our measurements show that condylobasal length and breadth of the anterior rostrum are about the same in the two species ( T. hakkariensis sp. nov. means 32.88 mm and 5.24 mm; T. streetorum means 32.51 mm and 5.07 mm, respectively), but T. streetorum is larger in terms of palatal and braincase widths ( T. hakkariensis sp. nov. means 9.86 mm and 16.30 mm; T. streetorum means 10.70 mm and 16.88 mm, respectively). The skull as a whole as measured by centroid size is larger in T. streetorum than in T. hakkariensis sp. nov., as is the mandible (Supporting Information, Fig. S2 ).

Comment

Note that the correct name for this taxon is T. streetorum , as corrected by Lay (1967), because it was named asser William S. and Janice K. Street, the genitive singular being used in error in the original description. Talpa streetorum was used by a number of workers (e.g. Niethammer 1969, Ziegler 1971), but appears to have been dropped since Corbet (1978) considered it an unjustified emendation. Following Article 31.1.2 of the Code, however, the correct name is clearly T. streetorum . Despite the lack of genetic data, our morphometric analyses show that T. streetorum differs significantly from T. hakkariensis sp. nov. and T. davidiana s.l. on skull characters. On this basis, we reinstate T. streetorum as a valid species, apparently endemic to Iran. Further work in the future, including DNA sequence data, would be useful to confirm this hypothesis. It was not possible to obtain tissues for molecular analyses due to restrictions outside our control.

Figures

Figure 1. Map of locations (see Table 1) of Talpa moles from Turkey and Iran studied here.

Figure 7. Talpa hakkariensis sp. nov., holotype, specimen 1533, cranium in (A) lateral, (B) ventral, and (C) dorsal views.Scale bar = 10 mm.

Figure 10. Talpa streetorum.Holotype, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, specimen 96424, cranium in (A) lateral, (B) ventral, and (C) dorsal views.Scale bar = 10 mm.

Figure 11. Lateral view of less upper molar in Anatolian–Iranian Talpa, anterior to the less. A, T. hakkariensis sp. nov., holotype, specimen 1533; B, topotypical T. davidiana davidiana, specimen 1565; C, T. davidiana tatvanensis ssp. nov., holotype, specimen 1530; D, T.streetorum Holotype, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, specimen 96424. Arrows indicate parastyle.

Figure 13. Mandibles of Anatolian–Iranian Talpa. A, T. hakkariensis sp. nov., holotype, specimen 1533; B, topotypical T. davidiana davidiana, specimen 1565; C, T. davidiana tatvanensis ssp. nov., holotype, specimen 1530; D, T.streetorum Holotype, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, specimen 96424. Scale bar = 2 mm.

Figure2. Results of BI, ML,and MP analyses combined on a BI tree based on the complete Cytb gene sequences ofTalpa species.ML and MP bootstrap values greater than 70% and posterior probabilities (PPs)greater than 0.80 are shown at nodes.Haplotypes Hap.1–20 are from this study. Species assignments from one distance-based (ASAP) and two tree-based (GMYC, mPTP) delimitation methods are represented by vertical bars onthe right side of the phylogeny.The black colour on the bars signifies that thereis agreement across delimitation approaches,whereas grey colour indicatesdisagreement.For geographical origins of the published sequences, see Table 1 and Supporting Information,Table S1.