Lesser Mole Rat

Lesser Mole Rat
Conservation status
Data Deficient (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Rodentia
Family:	Spalacidae
Genus:	Spalax
Species:	S. leucodon
Binomial name
Spalax leucodon Nordmann, 1840
Synonyms
Nannospalax leucodon (Nordmann, 1840)

The Lesser Mole Rat (Spalax leucodon) is a species of rodent in the Spalacidae family. It is found in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Turkey, and Ukraine. Recently, its taxonomic position is changing in the light of new scientific information.

Firstly, modern authors tend to separate this and some closely related mole rat species from other Spalax species by classifying them into a separate genus named Nannospalax.

Secondly, a recent cariological study shows that Nannospalax leucodon is in fact a superspecies that consists of several cariologically dinstinct cryptic species. It has four separate cariological forms in the Carpathian Basin, one of them is endangered, another one is vulnerable and there are no available data to evaluate the conservational status of the further two forms.

References

• Amori, G. 1996. Nannospalax leucodon. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 09 July 2007.
• 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.
• Németh A, Révay T, Hegyeli Z, Farkas J, Czabán D, Rózsás A , Csorba G 2009. Chromosomal forms and risk assessment of Nannospalax (superspecies leucodon) (Mammalia: Rodentia) in the Carpathian Basin Folia Zoologia, 58(3), 349–361.