Ondatra Link 1795

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Cricetidae, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 955-1189 : 1033

Ondatra Link 1795

Ondatra Link 1795 , Beytr. Naturg., 1 (2): 76.

Type Species: Castor zibethicus Linnaeus 1766

Synonyms: Fiber G. Cuvier 1800 ; Moschomys Billberg 1827 ; Mussacus Oken 1816 ; Neondatra Hibbard 1937 ; Pliopotamys Wilson 1933 ; Simotes Fischer 1817 .

Species and subspecies: 1 species:

Species Ondatra zibethicus ( Linnaeus 1766)

Discussion: Ondatrini. Assigned either as sole tribal member ( Hooper and Hart, 1962; Koenigswald, 1980) or with Neofiber ( Chaline and Mein, 1979; Repenning et al., 1990); or placed in subtribe Ondatrina, Arvicolini ( Pavlinov et al., 1995 a) . Based on allozymic analysis, Mezhzherin et al. (1995) recognized Ondatrini as the first group to have diverged from the basal arvicoline stock during the late Miocene. Evidence from fossil history and morphology indicates that the two genera of "muskrats" are more distantly related than their inclusion in the same tribe would connote ( Carleton, 1981; Hooper and Hart, 1962; Koenigswald, 1980; R. A. Martin, 1975, 1979); analysis of long interspersed nucleotide elements, on the other hand, unites Ondatra and Neofiber as sister genera ( Modi, 1996). Originated from the Pliocene form Pliopotamys minor ( Eshelman, 1975; Zakrzewski, 1974); Pliocene-Pleistocene changes in dentition and size ("chronomorphs") leading to extant species are traced by R. A. Martin (1996), who reallocated Pliopotamys as junior synonym.