Apodemus is a genus of murid (true mice and rats) containing the field mice as well as other well-known species like the wood mouse and the yellow-necked mouse. The name is unrelated to that of the Mus genus, instead being derived from the Greek ἀπό-δημος (literally away from home).
Taxonomy
Related to the Ryūkyū spiny rats (Tokudaia) and the prehistoric Rhagamys – and far more distantly to Mus and Malacomys1 – it includes these species:
Apodemus sensu stricto
- Striped field mouse, A. agrarius
- Small Japanese field mouse, A. argenteus
- Chevrier's field mouse, A. chevrieri
Alsomys
- South China field mouse, A. draco
- Himalayan field mouse, A. gurkha
- Sichuan field mouse, A. latronum
- Korean field mouse, A. peninsulae
- Taiwan field mouse, A. semotus
- Large Japanese field mouse, A. speciosus
Sylvaemus
- Alpine field mouse, A. alpicola
- Yellow-necked mouse, A. flavicollis – includes A. arianus
- Caucasus field mouse, A. hyrcanicus
- Ward's field mouse, A. pallipes
- Black Sea field mouse, A. ponticus
- Wood mouse, A. sylvaticus
- Ural field mouse, A. uralensis
- Pygmy field mouse, A. u. microps
- Cimrman Ural field mouse, A. u. cimrmani
- Steppe field mouse, A. witherbyi
Karstomys
- Western broad-toothed field mouse, A. epimelas
- Eastern broad-toothed field mouse, A. mystacinus
- Kashmir field mouse, A. rusiges
Incertae sedis
Further information: Incertae sedis
- Apodemus avicennicus Darvish, Javidkar & Siahsarvie, 2006
Prehistoric species described from fossil remains include:
- A. gorafensis (Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Italy)2
- A. dominans (Kolzoi 1959)
Further reading
- 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 (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 1260. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
- Steppan, S.J.; Adkins, R.M.; Spinks, P.Q. & Hale, C. (2005): Multigene phylogeny of the Old World mice, Murinae, reveals distinct geographic lineages and the declining utility of mitochondrial genes compared to nuclear genes. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 37(2): 370–388. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2005.04.016 PDF fulltext
- Darvish, J.; Javidkar, M.; Siahsarvie, R. 2006. A new species of wood mouse of the genus Apodemus (Rodentia, Muridae) from Iran Zoology in the Middle East
References
Steppan et al. (2005) ↩
Alexandra van der Geer; George Lyras; John de Vos; Michael Dermitzakis (2011). Evolution of Island Mammals: Adaptation and Extinction of Placental Mammals on Islands. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781444391282. 9781444391282 ↩