Apodemus mystacinus Danford and Alston 1877

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 1189-1531 : 1269

Apodemus mystacinus Danford and Alston 1877

Apodemus mystacinus Danford and Alston 1877 , Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1877: 279.

Type Locality: Turkey, Adana Province, Bulgar Dagh Mt, Zebil.

Vernacular Names: Eastern Broad-toothed Field Mouse.

Synonyms: Apodemus euxinus G. Allen 1914 ; Apodemus pohlei Aharoni 1932 ; Apodemus rhodius Festa 1914 ; Apodemus smyrnensis ( Thomas 1903) .

Distribution: On some Aegean islands (Rhodes, Crete, Corfu, and other inshore islands; Cheylan, 1991; Özkan and Kryštufek et al., 1999; Storch, 1977); eastward through Turkey ( Felten et al., 1973; Kryštufek and Vohralík, 2001; Pamukoglu and Albayrak, 1996) to S Georgia in Caucasus ( Gromov and Erbajeva, 1995); south and east to N and C Israel, Lebanon, NW Jordan (Benda and Sádlová, 1999; Mendelssohn and Yom-Tov, 1999; Qumsiyeh, 1996; Tchernov, 1979, who discussed extant and Pleistocene samples), Syria ( Shehab et al., 1999), and N Iraq; see non-European distribution in Corbet (1978 c), Niethammer (1978 a), Mitchell-Jones (1999), and review of distribution in the Near East by Harrison and Bates (1991).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Sylvaemus group. Reviewed by Storch (1977) and Niethammer (1978 a), who included krkensis as a subspecies; that form, however, is a color phase of A. sylvaticus (see that account). Usually regarded as sole member of subgenus Karstomys , but included in a Sylvaemus Group by Musser et al. (1996); placed in subgenus Karstomys of genus Sylvaemus by Mezhzherin (1997 a) and Pavlinov et al. (1995 a), but in an " Apodemus group" by Liu et al. (2004). Electrophoretic analyses of allozyme variation indicated A. mystacinus (and A. epimelas ) to be a distinct species justifiably placed within subgenus Sylvaemus ( Britton-Davidian et al., 1991; Filippucci, 1992; Filippucci et al., 2002; Gemmeke, 1980; Mezhzherin et al., 1992). Data from nuclear IRBP and mtDNA cytochrome b and 12S rRNA sequences also indicated weak affinity with Sylvaemus ( Michaux et al., 2002 a) , as did analyses of cytochrome b haplotype divergences ( Reutter et al., 2003), but not complete mtDNA cytochrome b sequences ( Liu et al., 2004). Vorontsov et al. (1989) provided chromosomal data in context of defining species of Apodemus in the Caucasus. Formerly included the Balkan epimelas , which is now treated as a separate species (see that account). Sequences from mtDNA cytochrome b and D-loop and the IRBP nuclear gene identified two distinct clades within A. mystacinus , one occupying NW and E Turkey, and the Near East, the other inhabiting SW Turkey and the island of Crete (Michaux et al., in press).

Remains of A. mystacinus were uncovered from subfossil cave deposits in S and E Anatolia ( Corbet and Morris, 1967; Kock et al., 1972) as well as middle Pleistocene ( Storch, 1975) and Holocene ( Besenecker et al., 1972) sediments on the Aegean island of Khios. Fossils are also common in middle Palaeolithic assemblages from Lebanon ( Kersten, 1992) and date back to middle Pleistocene in other parts of the Levant ( Tchernov, 1968, 1986, 1992, 1994) .