Arvicola, LACEPEDE, 1799

Masini, Federico, Maul, Lutz C., Abbazzi, Laura, Petruso, Daria & Savorelli, Andrea, 2020, Independent Water Vole (Mimomys Savini, Arvicola: Rodentia, Mammalia) Lineages In Italy And Central Europe, Fossil Imprint 76 (1), pp. 59-83 : 63

Extant Arvicola in Italy

Over the last thirty years Arvicola amphibius (= terrestris ) was commonly thought to be Italy’s only water vole. In his careful report on the Italian fauna, Toschi (1965) considered two valid subspecies: A. terrestris italicus , allegedly distributed in northern and central Italy, but also present in southern Switzerland as well as in the north-west of the Balkan Peninsula, and A. terrestris musignani , from central to southern Italy. The distributions of two subspecies were thought to partially overlap. According to Toschi (1965) the two subspecies were adapted to both fossorial and aquatic ways of life, similarly to the Alpine representatives and A. sapidus , respectively. Toschi (1965) reported the possible occurrence of a “more aquatic” population, geographically isolated on the Sila Mountains (Calabria). Eventually, Lapini and Paolucci (1994) suggest that in north-eastern Italy there are two subspecies, one, the fossorial A. terrestris scherman , distributed in mountainous areas (Carnic Alps) and the other, A. terrestris italicus , typical of the valley bottoms and of low altitude flatlands.

According to Castiglia et al. (2016), the current taxonomy includes two endemic taxa ( Gippoliti 2012) considered as subspecies ( Cagnin 2008): A. amphibius italicus SAVI, 1839 , restricted to central-northern Italy, and A. amphibius musignani DE SÉLYS LONGCHAMPS, 1839 , thought to be distributed in central-southern Italy.

Castiglia et al. (2016) revised Wust-Saucy’s (1998) and Taberlet’s (1998) studies and claimed significant differences discriminating the two “Italian clades, one with north western distribution and the other with central southern distribution”, from the “western European clade” and a large group indicated as “Euro-Asiatic clade”. They proposed to use the name A. italicus for the Italian water voles and ignored A. scherman ( Castiglia et al. 2016) .

Wust-Saucy’s (1998) and Taberlet’s (1998) molecularbased phylogeny and dispersals changed significantly the taxonomy of European and Italian water voles. The taxonomic-phylogenetic revision revealed a more complex evolution of Arvicola than previously assumed, and yet many taxonomic aspects still remain unclear.