Mountain voles
| Mountain voles | ||||||||||||
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Mountain voles ( Alticola ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Alticola | ||||||||||||
| Blanford , 1881 |
The mountain voles ( Alticola ) are a genus of voles that belong to the most common and important rodents of the Asian mountain ranges. They occupy the same ecological niches as the European snow mouse ( Microtus nivalis ), but are not closely related to it.
These voles have a head body length of 8 to 14 cm, plus 2 to 5 cm of tail. The fur is gray or brown on top and white on the underside. They live in altitudes between 900 and 5700 m and are among the highest living mammals.
In adaptation to the way of life in narrow rock crevices, the skull of the flat-headed vole is clearly flattened. It is the most common and widespread of all species. In the Central Asian mountains such as the Altai , it lives both in the vegetation-free heights above the tree line and in the lower lying larch forests .
All mountain voles replace the thin summer fur with a thick winter fur in autumn. This change of coat begins in the flat-headed vole as early as mid-August.
Systematics
Usually the mountain voles are divided into the following three subgenera and 13 species:
- Subgenus Alticola
- White-tailed mountain vole , Alticola albicauda , Kashmir
- Silver Mountain Vole or Silverskin Mountain Vole, Alticola argentatus , Central Asia
- Gobi-Altai mountain vole , Alticola barakshin , Mongolia, Tuwa
- Central Kashmiri Vole or Kashmir Mountain Vole, Alticola montosa , Kashmir
- Olkhon mountain vole , Alticola olchonensis , Lake Baikal region
- Royle mountain vole , Alticola roylei , Indian Himalayas
- Mongolian silver vole , Alticola semicanus , Mongolia
- Stoliczka mountain vole , Alticola stoliczkanus , Xinjiang, Tibet
- Tuva silver vole , Alticola tuvinicus , western Mongolia, south-central Siberia
- Subgenus Platycranius
- Flat-headed mountain vole , Alticola strelzowi , Central Asia
- Subgenus Aschizomys
- Alticola fetisovi , Lake Baikal region
- Lemming mountain vole , Alticola lemminus , northeast. Siberia
- Big-eared mountain vole , Alticola macrotis , Siberia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and northwestern China
The subgenus Aschizomys was as independent genus or subgenus of Rötelmäuse treated. Other doctrines assume that the Japanese bank voles ( Phaulomys ) are also to be classified as a sub-genus of the mountain voles.
Web links
literature
- Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World. 2 volumes. 6th edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD et al. 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9 .