Chinese pygmy dormouse

Chinese pygmy dormouse
Temporal range: Late Miocene - recent
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Family: Platacanthomyidae
Genus: Typhlomys
Milne-Edwards, 1877
Species: T. cinereus
Binomial name
Typhlomys cinereus
Milne-Edwards, 1877
Subspecies

T. c. cinereus
T. c. chapensis
T. c. daloushanensis
T. c. guangxiensis
T. c. jingdongensis

The Chinese pygmy dormouse (Typhlomys cinereus) is a species of rodent of the family Platacanthomyidae found in China and Vietnam.

Subspecies

Musser and Carleton (2005) recognized five subspecies.[2] While the northwest Vietnamese form Typhlomys cinereus chapensis is often treated as a distinct species, it falls within the normal variance of Chinese T. cinereus.

Description

The Chinese pygmy dormouse grows to a head-and-body length of about 67 to 90 mm (2.6 to 3.5 in) with a tail of one and half times its body-length. It has prominent, nearly hairless ears and white whiskers. The dorsal fur is dark greyish-brown and the underparts are grey with white-tipped hairs. The tail has whorls of scales near its base while the hindermost two-thirds are bushy with a tufted white tail-tip.[3]

Distribution

The Chinese pygmy dormouse is native to Vietnam and the Chinese provinces of Anhui, Fujian, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Zhejiang.[1]

Behaviour

The Chinese pygmy dormouse lives in mountain forests, including bamboo forests, where it climbs in trees. It can also burrow, but is not blind (a fact that might have been deduced from the genus name Typhlomys). It feeds on parts of plants including leaves, stems, fruit, and seeds. Little is known about the reproduction of this species, but the females have four nipples and pregnant females containing two to four embryos have been found.[1]

Status

The Chinese pygmy dormouse is retiring and seldom seen, so may be more abundant than is apparent. It is present in primary forest and the edge of degraded forest, but does not seem to inhabit secondary forest. A number of national parks and other protected areas are within its range, and no particular threats have been identified, so the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed it as being of "least concern".[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Lunde, D. & Smith, A.T. (2008). Typhlomys cinereus. In: IUCN 2008. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved 17 March 2009. Database entry includes a brief justification of why this species is of least concern
  2. Musser, G. G. and M. D. Carleton. 2005. Superfamily Muroidea. Pp. 894-1531 in Mammal Species of the World a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder eds. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
  3. Andrew T. Smith; Yan Xie (2008). A guide to the mammals of China. Princeton University Press. pp. 208–209. ISBN 978-0-691-09984-2.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, January 17, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.