Tscherskia triton (de Winton 1899)

[Cricetus] triton de Winton 1899, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1899: 575.

Type Locality: China, N Shantung.

Vernacular Names: Greater Long-tailed Hamster.

Synonyms: Tscherskia albipes Ognev 1914; Tscherskia arenosus (Mori 1939); Tscherskia bampensis (Kishida 1929); Tscherskia collinus (G. M. Allen 1925); Tscherskia fuscipes (G. M. Allen 1925); Tscherskia incanus (Thomas 1908); Tscherskia meihsienensis (Ho 1935); Tscherskia nestor (Thomas 1907); Tscherskia ningshaanensis Song 1985; Tscherskia yamashinai (Kishida 1929) .

Distribution: Upper Ussuri, Russia; NE China from Heilongjiang and Nei Mongol southeast through Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, and Anhui (Liu et al., 1985) and west through Shanxi to Shaanxi (north and south of Qinling Mtns) (Wang, 2003; Zhang et al., 1997); also Korean Peninsula (Won and Smith, 1999).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: G. M. Allen (1940) thoroughly redescribed the species, but whether one or more species are represented among the named forms remains to be resolved. Two sibling chromosomal species have been recognized ( albipes and triton) but soon after refuted based on additional chromosomal data (see Corbet, 1984, and references therein). Song (1985) proposed ningshaanensis for a sample of T. triton from Shaanxi, but Wang (2003) and Zhang et al. (1997) listed it as a subspecies of Cansumys canus (see that account). Karyotypes and B chromosomes from several Chinese samples described by Wang et al (1999). A related fossil species, T. rusa, has been described from Holocene material in NW Iran (Storch, 1974), far outside the range of extant Tscherskia .