Microtus (Mynomes) townsendii Bachman 1839

Microtus (Mynomes) townsendii Bachman 1839, J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 8: 60.

Type Locality: USA, Oregon, Multnomah Co., Wappatoo (Sauvie) Isl, lower Columbia River near mouth of Willamette River (as located by Bailey, 1900:46).

Vernacular Names: Townsend's Vole.

Synonyms: Microtus (Mynomes) cowani Guiguet 1955; Microtus (Mynomes) cummingi Hall 1936; Microtus (Mynomes) laingi Anderson and Rand 1943; Microtus (Mynomes) occidentalis (Peale 1848); Microtus (Mynomes) pugeti Dalquest 1940; Microtus (Mynomes) tetramerus (Rhoads 1894) .

Distribution: Wet meadows and marshes of Pacific Northwest, from extreme SW British Columbia, Canada, to NW California, USA, including Vancouver and neighboring islands.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (cd) as M. t. cowani, otherwise Lower Risk (nt).

Discussion: Subgenus Mynomes, pennsylvanicus species group (Zagorodnyuk, 1990). Broadly allied with M. pennsylvanicus and M. montanus (Anderson, 1959; Hooper and Hart, 1962; Modi, 1987); sister species to M. canicaudus according to phyletic reconstructions of cytochrome b sequences (Conroy and Cook, 2000 a). See Cornely and Verts (1988, Mammalian Species, 325).