Abstract
The taxonomic status of the harvest mouse Micromys minutus from Vietnam is re-evaluated. The mtDNA analysis shows that the harvest mice from Lao Cai Province of northern Vietnam belongs to a distinct phylogenetic lineage, previously known only from a haplotype from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, southern China (Yasuda et al. 2005). The mtDNA analysis shows a strong genetic divergence among this lineage and all the other known haplotypes of Micromys minutus (11.68% for cytochrome b gene sequences). Canonical discriminant analysis of cranial and dental data, as well as of some external characters, also separate the Vietnam – South China group (also including an Indian specimen) from other Palaearctic populations. The skull of southern populations is relatively large, with a longer and broader palatine. The dorsal pelage of the Vietnamese specimens is grey, tinged with brown in comparison with the red-brown dorsal colouration sharply contrasting with the white underside in the majority of Euro-Siberian adults. The harvest mice of the Vietnam – South China group are distinguished from the typical European ones by their rather long tail that is about 120% of the body length (82 to 95% in the Palaearctic populations). Both genetic and morphological data suggest the existence of a second Micromys species, occurring at least in North Vietnam and South China. The available name for this species is Micromys erythrotis (Blyth, 1856).References
Allen, G.M. (1940) The mammals of China and Mongolia. (Natural History of Central Asia. Vol. 11, part 2). American Museum of Natural History, New York, 621–1349 pp.
Anthony, H.E. (1941) Mammals collected by the Vernaya-Cutting Burma expedition. Field Museum of Natural History. Publication 511. Zoological Series, 27, 37–123.
Argyropulo, A.I. (1940) Fauna of USSR. Mammalia. Vol.3, issue 5. Family Muridae. Izdatelstvo AN SSSR, Moscow-Leningrad, 172 pp.
Blyth, E. (1856) Report for October meeting, 1855. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 24, 11–723.
Bradley, R.D. & Baker, R.J. (2001) A test of the genetic species concept: cytochrome b sequences and mammals. Journal of Mammalogy, 82, 960–973.
Corbet, G.B. & Hill, J.E. (1992) The mammals of the Indomalayan region: a systematic review. Oxford University Press, London, 488 pp.
Dang Huy Huynh, Dao Van Tien, Cao Van Sung, Pham Trong Anh & Hoang Minh Khien. (1994) Checklist of mammals in Vietnam. Publishing House “Science & Technics”, Hanoi, 168 pp. (In Vietnamese)
Dang Huy Huynh, Cao Van Sung, Le Xuan Canh, Pham Trong Anh, Nguyen Xuan Dang, Hoang Minh Khien & Nguyen Minh Tam. (2008) Fauna of Vietnam. Mammalia. Primates, Carnivora, Artiodactyla, Perissodactyla, Rodentia. Science and Technics Publishing House, Hanoi, 362 pp. (In Vietnamese)
Ellerman, J.R. & Morrison-Scott, T.C.S. (1951) Checklist of Palaearctic and Indian Mammals (1758 to 1946). Trustees of British Museum (Natural History), London, 810 pp.
Hall, T.A. (1999) BioEdit: a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for Windows 95/98/NT. Nucleic Acids Symposium Series, 41, 95–98.
ICZN (1999) International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. 4th ed. International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature, London, 306 pp.
Kratochvil, J. & Simionesku, V. (1983) Sur la question de Micromys danubialis (Mammalia, Muridae). Folia Zoologica, 32, 1–8.
Miller, G.S. (1912) Catalogue of the land-mammals of Western Europe. British Museum (Natural History), London, 1019 pp.
Musser, G.G. & Carleton, M.D. (2005) Superfamily Muroidea. In: Wilson, D.E. & Reeder, D.M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. Third edition. Vol.2. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp. 894–1531.
Orlov, V.N. & Bulatova, N.Sh. (1983) The comparative cytogenetics and karyosystematics of mammals. Nauka, Moscow, 405 pp.
Osgood, W.H. (1932) Mammals of the Kelley-Roosevelts and Delacour Asiatic expeditions. Field Museum of Natural History. Publication 312. Zoological Series, 18, 191–339.
Pallas, P.S. (1771). Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs. Kaiserhchen Akad. Wissensch., St. Petersburg, Vol.1, 504 pp.
Simionesku, J. (1974) Studii privind sistematica si variabilitatea geografica a genului Micromys Dehne, 1841 (ord. Rodentia). Studii şi Comunicări, Muzeal de Ştiinţele Naturii "Ion Borcea", 365–392.
Tamura, K., Dudley, J., Nei, M. & Kumar, S. (2007) MEGA4: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis (MEGA) software version 4.0. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 24, 1596–1599.
Thompson, J.D., Higgins D. G., & Gibson T.J. (1994) CLUSTAL W: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice. Nucleic Acids Research, 22, 4673–4680.
Villesen, P. (2007) FaBox: an online toolbox for fasta sequences. Molecular Ecology Notes, 7, 965–968.
Wang, Y.X. (2003) A complete checklist of mammal species and subspecies in China. A taxonomic and geographic reference. China Forestry Publishing House, Beijing, 394 pp.
Wroughton, R.S. (1920) Summary of the results from Indian mammal survey of the Bombay Natural History Society. Part 5. Journal of Bombay Natural History Society, 26, 955–967.
Yasuda, S.P., Vogel, P., Tsuchiya, K., Han, S.-H., Lin, L.-K. & Suzuki, H. (2005) Phylogeographic patterning of mtDNA in the widely distributed harvest mouse (Micromys minutus) suggests dramatic cycles of range contraction and expansion during the mid- to late Pleistocene. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 83, 1411–1420.
Zhang, Y., Jin, S., Quan, G., Li, S., Ye, Z., Wang, F. & Zhang, M. (1997) Distribution of mammalian species in China. China Forestry Publishing House, Beijing, 281 pp.