Order Rodentia - Family Muridae Author Guy G. Musser Author Michael D. Carleton text 1993 Smithsonian Institution Press Washington and London Editor Don E. Wilson Editor DeeAnn M. Reeder Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition) 501 755 book chapter http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7353098 1-56098-217-9 7353098 Lemmiscus Thomas, 1912 . Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 8, 9:401 . TYPE SPECIES: Arvicola curtata Cope, 1868 . COMMENTS: Named as a subgenus of Lagurus to segregate New World sagebrush voles from Old World steppe voles. Davis (1939) underscored the morphological separation between New and Old World forms and raised Lemmiscus to a genus, a view supported by Carleton's (1981) study of gastric anatomy. Subsequent faunal studies and checklists have variously listed Lemmiscus as a genus ( Carleton and Musser, 1984 ; Gromov and Polyakov, 1977 ) or as a subgenus of Lagurus ( Hall, 1981 ; Honacki et al., 1982 ). Certain morphological traits associate Lemmiscus with Microtus ( Carleton, 1981 ; Davis, 1939 ), but chromosomal banding patterns provide little resolution of its phylogenetic affinity ( Modi, 1987 ).