Michael D. Carleton | USGS Science

USGS2014

The valid generic name for red-backed voles (Muroidea: Cricetidae: Arvicolinae): Restatement of the case for Myodes Pallas, 1811

In view of contradictions in the recent literature, the valid genus-group name to be applied to northern red-backed voles— Myodes Pallas, 1811, or Clethrionomys Tilesius, 1850—is reviewed. To develop the thesis that Myodes (type species, Mus rutilus Pallas, 1779) is the correct name, our discussion explores the 19th-century taxonomic works that bear on the relevant taxa, the transition in zoological codes apropos the identification of type species, and past nomenclatural habits in cases where no type species was originally indicated. We conclude that Myodes is the senior name to use for the genus-group taxon that includes the Holarctic species rutilus and frame this conclusion within a synonymy of the genus.

Journal of Mammalogy↗

USGS2009

A new species of Reithrodontomys, subgenus Aporodon (Cricetidae: Neotominae), from the highlands of Costa Rica, with comments on Costa Rican and Panamanian Reithrodontomys

A new species of the rodent genus Reithrodontomys (Cricetidae: Neotominae) is described from Cerro Asuncion in the western Cordillera de Talamanca, Costa Rica. The long tail, elongate rostrum, bulbous braincase, and complex molars of the new species associate it with members of the subgenus Aporodon, tenuirostris species group. In its diminutive size and aspects of cranial shape, the new species (Reithrodontomys musseri, sp. nov.) most closely resembles R. microdon, a form known from highlands in Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico. In the course of differentially diagnosing the new species, we necessarily reviewed the Costa Rican and Panamanian subspecies of R. mexicanus based on morphological comparisons, study of paratypes and vouchers used in recent molecular studies, and morphometric analyses. We recognize Reithrodontomys cherrii (Allen, 1891) and R. garichensis finders and Pearson, 1940, as valid species, and allocate R. mexicanus potrerograndei Goodwin, 1945, as a subjective synonym of R. brevirostris Goodwin, 1943. Critical review of museum specimens collected subsequent to Hooper's (1952) revision is needed and would do much to improve understanding of Reithrodontomys taxonomy and distribution in Middle America.

Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History↗