Order Rodentia - Family Dipodidae
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
871
893
book chapter
0-8018-8221-4
10.5281/zenodo.7316535
Allactaginae Vinogradov 1925
Allactaginae
Vinogradov 1925
,
Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1925 (1): 578
.
Synonyms:
Alactaginae
Vinogradov 1925
;
Allactodipodini Zazhigin and
Lopatin 2000
.
Genera:
3 genera with 16 species:
Genus
Allactaga
F. Cuvier 1836
(12 species)
Genus
Allactodipus
Kolesnikov 1937
(1 species)
Genus
Pygeretmus
Gloger 1841
(3 species)
Discussion:
Dental morphology and evolution studied by
Shenbrot (1984)
. Allactodipodini was proposed for
Allactodipus
(
Zazhigin and Lopatin, 2000
a
)
, but no type genus was explicitly indicated. Modern range of the subfamily is Asian (only
Allactaga tetradactyla
occurs in north Africa) and its evolutionary roots are in that continent. The first allactagine may have evolved from Asian late Oligocene
Gobiosminthus
(
Zazhigin and Lopatin, 2000
c
)
or
Parasminthus
(
Wang and Qiu, 2000
;
McKenna and Bell, 1997
, treat both genera as synonyms of
Plesiosminthus
) into two major lineages (
Zazhigin and Lopatin, 2000
c
). One is represented by species of
Protalactaga
, the first true allactagines, from latter portion of Asian early Miocene, and may have been ancestral to
Allactaga
, which first appears in the later half of Asian late Miocene and is represented by an array of species in the Pliocene.
Pygerethmus
dates from the late Pliocene; it and the extinct Asian
Brachyscirtetes
(late Miocene to early Pliocene) may have been derived from
Allactaga
.
Allactodipus bobrinskii
, unrepresented by fossils, is the other lineage, and
Zazhigin and Lopatin (2000
c
)
speculated a North African or Near East origin for the genus. To taxonomically reflect this evolutionary duality,
Zazhigin and Lopatin (2000
a
)
separated
Allactodipus
in a tribe separate from the other allactagines. Outside of Asia, Miocene
Allactaginae
are represented by
Arabosminthus
from
Saudia
Arabia (late Miocene, usually treated as a zapodid;
R
. A. Martin, 1994;
McKenna and Bell, 1997
) and a middle Miocene sample from
Morocco
originally identified as "
Protalactaga moghrebiensis
" (
Jaeger, 1977
b
)
that likely represents an undescribed genus (
Zazhigin and Lopatin, 2000
c
).
Himalayactaga
, from late Miocene Tibetan strata, is usually regarded as an allactagine (e. g.,
McKenna and Bell, 1997
), but
Zazhigin and Lopatin (2000
c
:554)
considered it of "uncertain taxonomic position within the Myomorpha." European late Pliocene and Pleistocene records of
Allactaga
and
Pygerethmus
are summarized by
Kowalski (2001)
.