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
Lemmus amurensis
Vinogradov 1924
Lemmus amurensis
Vinogradov 1924
,
Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 9, 14: 186
.
Type Locality:
Russia
, Siberia, Pikan, on Zeya River, a tributary of the
Amur
River.
Vernacular Names:
Amur
Brown Lemming
.
Synonyms:
Lemmus chrysogaster
J. A. Allen 1903
;
Lemmus flavescens
Vinogradov 1925
;
Lemmus ognevi
Vinogradov 1933
;
Lemmus xanthotrichus
Vinogradov 1925
.
Distribution:
Larch taiga of E Siberia; from the Arctic coast between the Lena and Kolyma Rivers southeastward onto the
Kamchatka Peninsula
, and southward through the Verkhoyansk and Cherskogo Mtns and the Omolon River to the upper
Amur
River basin and region east of Lake Baikal; also on islands in the New Siberian Arch. (Novosibirskiye Ostrova) (Chernyavskii et al., 1980, 1993; Federov, 1999
a
;
Jarrell and Fredga, 1993
:Fig. 2).
Conservation:
IUCN
– Lower Risk (lc).
Discussion:
Revised by Chernyavskii et al. (1980); additional chromosomal data analyzed by
Gileva et al. (1984)
. The distinctiveness of
L. amurensis
has been reaffirmed by
Chernyavskii et al. (1993)
, who studied karyotypes, craniodental traits, and pelage coloration and reported its range extension in the
Kamchatka Peninsula
.
Fedorov et al. (1999
b
)
similarly demonstrated its genetic isolation relative to
L. trimucronatus
and
L. sibiricus
based on mitochondrial DNA analyses. Their study highlights the biogeographic importance of the Lena-Kolyma catchment, with
L. trimucronatus
ranging east of the Kolyma River,
L. sibiricus
ranging to the west of the Lena River, and
L. amurensis
found in-between; discontinuities in mitochondrial DNA sequences among samples of
Dicrostonyx
are also localized in the region of the Kolyma and Lena Rivers (Federov, 1999; Federov et al., 1999
a
).
Includes
chrysogaster
, a form sometimes viewed as a species (e.g.,
Gileva et al., 1984
;
Gromov and Erbajeva, 1995
). In identifying their Chukotskiy sample as the species
chrysogaster
,
Gileva et al. (1984)
inadvertently confused understanding of the taxonomy and ranges of these lemmings (see remarks under
L. sibiricus
and
L. trimucronatus
). The type locality of
chrysogaster
is Gichiga, a place near the west coast of the Okhotsk Sea (
Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951:656
) and at the margin of the known range of
L. amurensis
, and we refer
chrysogaster
to that species.
Pavlinov and Rossolimo (1987)
retained, with reservation,
chrysogaster
in the synonymy of
L. sibiricus
, which then was thought to occur in the region as far as the
Kamchatka Peninsula
.