Cricetulus barabensis (Pallas, 1773)

Guy G. Musser & Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 501-755 : 537

Cricetulus barabensis (Pallas, 1773) . Reise Prov. Russ. Reichs., 2:704.

TYPE LOCALITY: Russia, W Siberia, banks of River Ob .

DISTRIBUTION: Steppes of S Siberia from River Irtysh to Ussuri region, and south to Mongolia, N China (Xinjiang through Nei Mongol), and Korea.

SYNONYMS: ferrugineus , fumatus , furunculus , griseus ( Milne-Edwards, 1867, not Kashkarov, 1923), manchuricus , mongolicus , obscurus , pseudogriseus, tuvinicus , xinganensis.

COMMENTS: Pavlinov and Rossolimo (1987) listed pseudogriseus as a species, and Corbet and Hill (1991) treated it and griseus as species. However, these were originally diagnosed by chromosomal traits, and in a study that included C. barabensis, Krâl et al. (1984) found it difficult to karyotypically characterize the three species because of the extensive homology among chromosome arms. Our treatment reflects that of Corbet (1978c), who discussed the problem and included pseudogriseus and griseus in C. barabensis . See Malygin et al. (1992) for an opposite treatment.