Podoces pleskei Zarudny, 1896

Eskandarzadeh, Naeimeh, Rastegar-Pouyani, Nasrullah, Rastegar-Pouyani, Eskandar, Fathinia, Behzad, Bahmani, Zahed, Hamidi, Kordiyeh & Gholamifard, Ali, 2018, Annotated checklist of the endemic Tetrapoda species of Iran, Zoosystema 40 (24), pp. 507-537 : 526-527

Podoces pleskei Zarudny, 1896

( Fig. 8 )

Podoces pleskei Zarudny, 1896 : xii.

COMMON NAME. — Iranian Ground-Jay.

HOLOTYPE. — Not traced.

DISTRIBUTION. — Sehhatisabet (2007) reported this species from Semnan, Esfahan, Tehran, Yazd, Khorasan Razavi, South Khorasan, Kerman and Fars Provinces. The most observed individuals were from the Touran Biosphere Reserve in Semnan Province. Baloutch in 1977 reported this species also from Sistan and Baluchestan and Golestan Provinces ( Radnezhad et al. 2011).

HABITAT. — Distributed in desert and semi-desert areas particularly on the Iranian Plateau. The nest is located at the top of and in the compact parts of plants, especially Atraphaxis spinosa L., Ephedra intermedia Schrenk & C.A.Mey and Zygophyllum eurypterum Boiss. & Buhse (Satei et al. 2010; Radnezhad et al. 2011). Sehhatisabet (2007) observed all the studied samples in steppe and sandy deserts with spread shrubs of Zygophyllum sp., Haloxylon sp. and Ephedra sp.

IUCN. — Least concern.

REFERENCES. — Zarudny (1896); Sehhatisabet (2007); Satei et al. (2010); Radnezhad et al. (2011).

REMARK

According to Sehhatisabet (2007) P.pleskei is observed within a few km of the Afghanistan border in the Namakazar Basin between Niyaz Abad and Kalateh Kabudeh in East of Khorasan. Moreover, its range extends toward the Iran-Pakistan border ( Radnezhad et al. 2011). Despite the LC status of the Iranian Ground-Jay, some crucial factors such as habitat loss and the sample collection for museums affect its populations (Sehhatisabet 2007).

Class MAMMALIA Linnaeus, 1758 Order SORICOMORPHA Gregory, 1910 Family SORICIDAE G. Fischer, 1814 Genus Crocidura Wagler, 1832

Figures

FIG. 8. — Podoces pleskei Zarudny, 1896. Photo by M. Ghorbani.