Subspeciation in the Meadow Mouse, Microtus pennsylvanicus, in Wyoming, Colorado, and Adjacent Areas — John Shaqi
Subspeciation in the Meadow Mouse, Microtus pennsylvanicus, in Wyoming, Colorado, and Adjacent AreasAnderson, Sydney
Science
Subspeciation in the Meadow Mouse, Microtus pennsylvanicus, in Wyoming, Colorado, and Adjacent Areas
Anderson, Sydney
Mice
_Comparisons._--From _M. p. uligocola_, the subspecies to the
southeast, _M. p. pullatus_ differs as follows: relatively darker
in southern part of its range (see Figure 1); smaller, tail
relatively longer. In 6 of 7 pairs of skulls compared of _pullatus_
(from Lincoln Co., Wyoming) and _uligocola_ (from Larimer Co.,
Colorado), _pullatus_ had relatively broader nasals (Confidence
Limit .85); _uligocola_ had larger maxillary septa (C. L. .97) and
larger molar teeth (C. L. .90). From _insperatus_, the subspecies
to the east, _pullatus_ differs as follows: both summer and winter
pelage darker; tail longer both actually and relatively; upper
molar tooth-row shorter. Ten pairs of skulls of specimens from near
Afton, Wyoming, representing _pullatus_, and from northeastern
Wyoming, representing _insperatus_, revealed no significant
differences in the features observed by the "method of pairs".
Although not compared in detail with the subspecies to the north,
_M. p. drummondi_ (Audubon and Bachman), examination of specimens
from western Montana and the accounts of other authors indicate
that topotypes of _pullatus_ are darker, longer-tailed, slightly
larger-skulled and perhaps longer over all.
_Remarks._--In this subspecies there is a cline in color from dark in
extreme southwestern Wyoming to pale in north-central Wyoming and
Montana as the range of _M. p. insperatus_ is approached. There is thus
a broad zone of intergradation in color and the line separating the
subspecies must be drawn somewhat arbitrarily. In Wyoming the most
distinct break in this cline is in the Big Horn Basin and if a detailed
study of the species were made in Montana the break would probably be
found where the mountains meet the plains, roughly as shown in Figure
1. There is a similar cline in western Montana in color. The mice are
paler farther north as one approaches the Canadian border although they
do not become so pale as _insperatus_. Darkness is a characteristic of
several non-adjacent subspecies of _Microtus pennsylvanicus_, for
example _M. p._ _kincaidi_ Dalquest in central Washington (Dalquest,
1948:347), _M. p. finitus_, and _M. p. nigrans_ Rhoads in eastern
Virginia, but these subspecies presumably differ in other characters.
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