Order Rodentia - Family Cricetidae Author Wilson, Don E. Author Reeder, DeeAnn text 2005 The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2 955 1189 book chapter 0-8018-8221-4 10.5281/zenodo.7316535 Mesocricetus brandti Nehring 1898 Mesocricetus brandti Nehring 1898 , Zool. Anz., 21: 331 . Type Locality: Georgia , near Tbilisi . Vernacular Names: Brandt's Hamster . Synonyms: Mesocricetus koenigi Nehring 1898 . Distribution: Anatolian Turkey and Black Sea Mtns in N Turkey , east into the Caucasus ( Armenia , Georgia , Azerbaijan ; Gromov and Erbajeva, 1995 ), and south to NW Iran ( Lay, 1967 ), N Iraq , Syria , Lebanon , and N Israel ( Qumsiyeh, 1996 , as auratus ). Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc). Discussion: Corbet (1978 c ) reservedly included brandti in M. auratus , following the traditional view ( Ellerman, 1941 ; Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951 ). Hamer and Schutowa (1965) earlier established the specific integrity of M. brandti and Lyman and O’Brien (1977) exhaustively revised the species; additional chromosomal data provided by Fang and Jagiello (1992) . Population and range in C Anatolian Turkey documented by Spitzenberger (1972) and summarized by Kryštufek and Vohralík (2001). Yiğit et al. (2000 b ) broadly inventoried M. brandti in Turkey and contrasted its morphology and karyotype with those of M. auratus in SE Turkey (see above account).