Long-tailed mice
| Long-tailed mice | ||||||||||||
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Wood mouse ( Apodemus sylvaticus ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Muridae | ||||||||||||
| Illiger , 1811 |
The long-tailed mice (Muridae) form a family of mice species (Muroidea) in the order of rodents (Rodentia). Although many species are cosmopolitan , some of which are self-sufficient, some - such as the house rat - have been able to spread over the whole world with the help of means of transport , the vast majority of species are limited to small areas of distribution and hardly come into contact with humans. Due to their enormous adaptability and the fact that they are cultural followers , the cosmopolitans of this family can be found in houses, stables and other buildings. In some parts of Germany z. B. the fire mouse , Apodemus agrarius , is common.
As with the house mouse in human settlement areas, natural enemies include brown rats , house cats and stone marten . In nature they are eaten by the red fox , owls , snakes and birds of prey .
The long-tailed mice comprise around 750 species in 150 genera, making them one of the most species-rich mammalian families . Their original range covered Eurasia , Africa and Australia , through human influence they are distributed worldwide today, also on many islands, where they were previously missing.
Systematics
There are different views on the classification. In some classifications all animals of the mice are grouped into a family Muridae, in more recent classifications, however, some groups are emphasized as separate families, including the burrows (with voles , hamsters and New World mice ), the Spalacidae and others.
The system used here largely follows Wilson & Reeder (2005) and divides the long-tailed mice into five subfamilies:
- Old world mice (Murinae, including the lamellar tooth rats that were previously considered to be independent )
- Gerbils (Gerbillinae)
- Deomyinae
- Mane rats (Lophiomyinae)
- Furrow- tooth wood mice (Leimacomyinae)
literature
- Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World . Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9
- Malcolm C. McKenna, Susan K. Bell: Classification of Mammals: Above the Species Level . Columbia University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-231-11013-8
- DE Wilson, DM Reeder: Mammal Species of the World . Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4
