Sicista betulina Pallas, 1779

Mary Ellen Holden, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Dipodidae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 487-499 : 496

Sicista betulina Pallas, 1779 . Nova Spec. Quad. Glir. Ord., p. 332.

TYPE LOCALITY: SW Siberia, birch plain on bank of Ishim River, and Barabinskaya Step .

DISTRIBUTION: Boreal and montane forests from Norway, Denmark; east to Ussuri region of China and SE Siberia, north to the Arctic Circle at the White Sea and Usa River, south to Austria, Carpathian and Sayan Mtns ( Corbet, 1978c). In the former USSR see Kuznetsov (1965) and Sludskii (1977). Sokolov et al. (1989) considered the Ussuri region records questionable.

SYNONYMS: montana , norvegica , taigica, tatricus (see Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951; and Corbet, 1978c).

COMMENTS: Sokolov et al. (1982, 1987b) gave karyological, and spermatozoal characters that distinguished this species from S. napaea and S. pseudonapaea . Pallas' type specimen was probably not preserved ( Ognev, 1963b:33). Review and distribution in Europe provided by Pucek (1982). See comment under S. strandi .