Ochotona (Ochotona) dauurica (Pallas 1776)

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Lagomorpha, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 1, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 185-211 : 187

Ochotona (Ochotona) dauurica (Pallas 1776)

[Lepus] dauuricus Pallas 1776 , Reise Prov. Russ. Reichs, Vol. 3: 692.

Type Locality: "Vivit in campis, montiumque declivibus arenosis apricis, per totam Dauuriam..." Restricted by Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951:452) to "Kulusutai, Onon River, Eastern Siberia" [Chitinsk. Obl. Russia].

Vernacular Names: Daurian Pika.

Subspecies: :

Subspecies Ochotona (Ochotona) dauurica subsp. dauurica Pallas 1776

Subspecies Ochotona (Ochotona) dauurica subsp. annectens Miller 1911

Subspecies Ochotona (Ochotona) dauurica subsp. bedfordi Thomas 1908

Subspecies Ochotona (Ochotona) dauurica subsp. mursavi Bannikov 1951

Distribution: Steppes from Altai, Tuva, and Transbaikalia ( Russia) through N China and Mongolia, south to Qinghai Province, China. Zhang et al. (1997), listed it from Henan and Hebei provinces, but this may be a lapsus.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc). Considered a pest, is intensively controlled in China; control in Russia has been much less intensive. Isolated populations around the margins of the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia are very vulnerable (A. T. Smith et al., 1990).

Discussion: Subgenus Ochotona . The spelling of dauurica conforms to that of the original description. Formerly included curzoniae and melanostoma ; see curzoniae , above. The retention of annectens as a subspecies is conservative; see comments under cansus . Inclusion of shaanxiensis as a synonym of O. d. bedfordi is provisional (see Wang and Xu, 1992). Ellerman and Morrison-Scott’s type restriction is dubious because modern Kulusutai is south of the Onon River, at the NE end of Lake Baron-Torei. See Ognev (1940:62) and Allen (1938:551) for alternate type localities in the same general area.