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
Ondatra
Link 1795
Ondatra
Link 1795
,
Beytr. Naturg., 1 (2): 76
.
Type Species:
Castor zibethicus
Linnaeus 1766
Synonyms:
Fiber
G. Cuvier 1800
;
Moschomys
Billberg 1827
;
Mussacus
Oken 1816
;
Neondatra
Hibbard 1937
;
Pliopotamys
Wilson 1933
;
Simotes
Fischer 1817
.
Species and subspecies:
1 species:
Species
Ondatra zibethicus
(
Linnaeus 1766
)
Discussion:
Ondatrini. Assigned either as sole tribal member (
Hooper and Hart, 1962
;
Koenigswald, 1980
) or with
Neofiber
(
Chaline and
Mein
, 1979
;
Repenning et al., 1990
); or placed in subtribe
Ondatrina, Arvicolini (
Pavlinov et al., 1995
a
)
. Based on allozymic analysis,
Mezhzherin et al. (1995)
recognized Ondatrini as the first group to have diverged from the basal arvicoline stock during the late Miocene. Evidence from fossil history and morphology indicates that the two genera of "muskrats" are more distantly related than their inclusion in the same tribe would connote (
Carleton, 1981
;
Hooper and Hart, 1962
;
Koenigswald, 1980
;
R
. A.
Martin, 1975
, 1979); analysis of long interspersed nucleotide elements, on the other hand, unites
Ondatra
and
Neofiber
as sister genera (
Modi, 1996
). Originated from the Pliocene form
Pliopotamys minor
(
Eshelman, 1975
;
Zakrzewski, 1974
); Pliocene-Pleistocene changes in dentition and size ("chronomorphs") leading to extant species are traced by
R
. A.
Martin (1996)
, who reallocated
Pliopotamys
as junior synonym.