Meriones (Pallasiomys) arimalius Cheesman and Hinton 1924

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 : 1234

Meriones (Pallasiomys) arimalius Cheesman and Hinton 1924

Meriones (Pallasiomys) arimalius Cheesman and Hinton 1924 , Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 9, 14: 554.

Type Locality: Saudi Arabia, Yabrin (Jabrin), Djebel Agoula.

Vernacular Names: Arabian Jird.

Distribution: "Northern sands of the Rub al Khali in Saudi Arabia and Oman " ( Harrison and Bates, 1991:297).

Conservation: IUCN – Endangered.

Discussion: Subgenus Pallasiomys . Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951) listed arimalius as a valid species, but it was later included in M. libycus ( Corbet, 1978 c; Harrison and Bates, 1991). Pavlinov et al. (1990:294) reinstated arimalius as a separate species and reviewed its salient characters. Even from the terse description of its diagnostic traits provided by Harrison and Bates (1991:297), who recognized the form as a subspecies of M. libycus , it is evident that arimalius is morphologically different from populations of lybicus north of it in Saudi Arabia. The species was also considered distinct by Nadler and Lay (1967).