A study of the mammals of Iran: resulting from the Street Expedition of 1962-63 [by] Douglas M. Lay.

Review of unique odd chromosome-numbered underground rodent species ofthe Palearctic region: Ellobius lutescens Thomas 1897 (Rodentia: Cricetidae)

“…The summer pelage of E. lutescens is considerably grayer than its buffy winter coat, due seemingly to greater exposure of the slate-colored basal parts of the hairs. This black-buff color relationship is identical to that of topotypes from Van, Turkey, of E. lutescens (FMNH 82162-3) and the Azerbaijan series (Lay, 1967). Demarcation is not clear.…”

“…Ellobius lutescens is a Palearctic species that is distributed in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Transcaucasia, and East Anatolia (Thomas, 1905;Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951;Darlington, 1957;Osborn, 1962;Walker, 1964;Lay, 1967;Hassinger, 1973;Roberts, 1977;Corbet, 1978;Corbet and Hill, 1991;Wilson and Reeder, 2005;Coşkun, 1997;Nowak, 1999) (Figure 1). The elevational distribution is from ca.…”

“…1500 to about 2800 m in East Anatolia including Van, Hakkari, Ağrı, and Iğdır provinces (Figure 3) (Coşkun and Ulutürk, 2001;Kaya and Coşkun, 2015). Live mole voles allowed to wander freely frequently fell into holes, over drop-offs, and into streams, an indication that they may have poor vision (Lay, 1967).…”

New records of the William’s Jerboa, Paralactaga cf. williamsi (Thomas, 1897) (Rodentia: Dipodidae) from northeastern Iran with notes on its ecology

“…The five-toed jerboas of genus Allactaga Cuvier, 1837 (sensu lato) traditionally included 12 morphospecies distributed in the arid and semiarid of North Africa, Iranian plateau, to central Asia and Mongolia (Lay 1967). Five species of this group, now classified in the genus Paralactaga, Young, 1927 (Lebedev et al 2013), are reported from various regions of Iran, including: Small Five-toed Jerboa (P. elater Gray, 1824), William's Jerboa (P. williamsi Thomas, 1897), Euphrates Jerboa (P. euphratica Thomas, 1881), Hotson's Jerboa (P. hotsoni Thomas, 1920), and Toussi Jerboa (P. toussi Darvish, Hajjar, Matin, Haddad and Akbary rad, 2008) (Lay 1967;Darvish et al 2008;Tarahomi et al 2010).…”

“…In Iran, it has been reported from west and northwestern parts. Lay (1967) (Çolak and Yiğit 1998). In Azerbaijan, the species is considered common in semi-desert, foothills and mountain steppes and rare in lowland and riparian forests (Lobachev et al 1976;Shenbrot et al 2008).…”