Père David bank vole

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Père David bank vole
Systematics
Superfamily : Mice-like (Muroidea)
Family : Burrowers (Cricetidae)
Subfamily : Voles (arvicolinae)
Tribe : Myodini
Genre : Père david voles ( Eothenomys )
Type : Père David bank vole
Scientific name
Eothenomys melanogaster
( Milne-Edwards , 1871)

The Père David's bank vole or Père David's red-backed vole ( Eothenomys melanogaster ) is a rodent species from the subfamily of voles (Arvicolinae). It occurs in large parts of southern China as well as on Taiwan and in the adjacent regions in India , Myanmar , Thailand and Vietnam . The species was named after the French clergyman and naturalist Jean Pierre Armand David and selected by Gerrit Smith Miller as the type species for the genus Eothenomys .

features

The Père David bank vole is a comparatively large species of the genus and reaches a head-trunk length of 8.7 to 10.8 centimeters with a tail of 2.1 to 4.2 centimeters in length . The rear foot length is 15 to 17 millimeters, the ear length 10 to 12 millimeters. It is therefore relatively small compared to closely related species. Animals from populations in Sichuan and Yunnan are on average smaller than animals from eastern China. The back fur is dark brown, sometimes black-brown to almost black. The peritoneum is slate gray, partly with sand-colored or brown washings. The tail is of medium length for a species of the Eothenomys melanogaster species complex, it is dark brown on top and slightly lighter brown on the underside.

distribution

The Père David bank vole occurs in large parts of southern China as well as on Taiwan and in the adjacent regions in India , Myanmar , Thailand and Vietnam . In China, she lives in parts of Sichuan , Anhui , Guangdong , western Yunnan , southeast Xizang , southern Gansu, and southwest Shaanxi . In northern India, the species from the Mishmi Mountains and the upper reaches of the Noa-Dihing has been documented in Arunachal Pradesh and in Southeast Asia there are records in northern Myanmar, the extreme northwest of Vietnam and in an isolated area in Thailand. The altitude distribution ranges from 700 to 3000 meters.

Way of life

The Père David bank vole lives mainly in temperate rhododendron and pine stands in mountain regions at altitudes of 700 to 3000 meters, in southern areas it is found in more open areas and also in agricultural areas near the forest lines. In Southeast Asia the animals live in tropical and subtropical mountain forest regions and temperate forests, where they stay in the leaves on the forest floor.

The animals are primarily herbivorous and feed on different parts of the plant. The males have an average territory of 417 m², the females of 467 m², whereby the individual territories, even of the same sexes, strongly overlap and there are no territorial conflicts. The breeding season is in February to March and then again in September to October, the animals reach their maximum numbers in May to June.

Systematics

The Père David bank vole is classified as a separate species within the genus Eothenomys , which consists of eight species. The first scientific description comes from the French zoologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards , who described the species in 1871 using individuals from Baoxing (formerly Moupin) in western Sichuan. In some cases, the Kachin bank vole ( Eothenomys cachinus ) was assigned to the species; today it is considered a separate species in the Eothenomys melanogaster species complex, together with the Père David bank vole and the Yunnan bank vole ( Eothenomys miletus ) .

Several subspecies are distinguished within the species. Smith & Yan Xie 2009 describe six subspecies for the distribution areas in China and Taiwan:

  • Eothenomys melanogaster melanogaster in the west of Sichuan, the south of Gansu and the east of Shaanxi.
  • Eothenomys melanogaster chenduensis in Sichuan.
  • Eothenomys melanogaster colurnus in east Sichuan east of Anhui and south of Guangdong .
  • Eothenomys melanogaster kanoi in Taiwan.
  • Eothenomys melanogaster libonotus in the west of Yunnan and in the southeast of Xizang. Agrawal 2000 also recognizes this subspecies in Arunachal Pradesh, India, and in Myanmar.
  • Eothenomys melanogaster mucronatus in southwest Sichuan.

Status, threat and protection

The Père David bank vole is classified as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). This is justified with the large distribution area and the assumed large stocks of the species that also occur in protected areas. There are no potential endangerment risks for the entire population of the species; locally, especially in Southeast Asia, they are endangered by habitat loss and deforestation in the distribution area due to the spread of agriculturally used areas and settlement areas.

supporting documents

  1. ^ A b c d Darrin Lunde, Andrew T. Smith: Père David's Chinese Vole. In: Andrew T. Smith , Yan Xie: A Guide to the Mammals of China. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 2008, ISBN 978-0-691-09984-2 , p. 224.
  2. ↑ a b c Eothenomys melanogaster . In: Don E. Wilson , DeeAnn M. Reeder (Eds.): Mammal Species of the World. A taxonomic and geographic Reference. 2 volumes. 3. Edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Eothenomys melanogaster in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2016.2. Posted by: D. Lunde, G. Musser, S. Molur, 2008. Retrieved October 17, 2016.
  4. ^ VC Agrawal: Taxonomic Studies on Indian Muridae and Hystricidae (Mammalia: Rodentia). Records of the Zoological Survey of India, Occasional Paper No. 180, 2000, pp. 1-177 (here p. 35).

literature

  • Darrin Lunde, Andrew T. Smith: Père David's Chinese Vole. In: Andrew T. Smith , Yan Xie: A Guide to the Mammals of China. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 2008, ISBN 978-0-691-09984-2 , p. 224.

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