Ochotona dauurica (Pallas, 1776)

Robert S. Hoffmann, 1993, Order Lagomorpha, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 807-827 : 808

Ochotona dauurica (Pallas, 1776) . Reise Prov. Russ. Reichs., 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. Obi. Russia].

DISTRIBUTION: Steppes from Altai, Tuva, and Transbaikalia ( Russia) through N China and Mongolia, south to Qinghai Province, China.

STATUS: 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).

SYNONYMS: altaina Thomas, 1911; annectens Miller, 1911; bedfordi Thomas, 1908; minor Link, 1795 ; mursavi Bannikov, 1951.

COMMENTS: The spelling of dauurica conforms to that of the original description. Formerly included curzoniae and melanostoma ; see curzoniae . 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.