Biosystematics of the yellow-faced pocket gopher, Cratogeomys castanops, in the United States

Date

1988-12

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

The problem addressed herein is the systematic and evolutionary relationships, from a morphometric perspective, of currently recognized races of Cratogeomys in the United States. On the basis of published findings to the end of 1987, nine subspecies of Q.. castanops currently are recognized as occurring in the United States. Eight of these occur in Texas, with the possibility of the ninth occurring in the extreme northwestern corner of the Texas Panhandle. This species also occurs in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, and southward into Mexico. Since Russell's (1968^1) revision of the genus Pappogeomys (sensu latoL no taxonomic study has been done concerning more than two adjacent subspecies. Several criticisms of Russell's (1968ii) work can be made: his analysis was not of a statistical nature; specimens from many intermediate geographic areas were not available to him, and, in fact, his study was based on relatively few specimens from the overall distribution of the species. Moreover, Russell (1968ii) discussed two subspecies as "...occurring sympatrically with no apparent intergradation..." in the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas. Schmidly (1977) also reported two races from another locality in the Trans-Pecos region of Texas. Such situations likely do not exist unless more than one species is involved.

Description

Keywords

Pocket gophers

Citation