Horváth Géza (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 24. (Budapest 1926)

Éhik, Gy.: Magyarország földipockai

Undoubtedly the system of Microtinae is one of the most difficult questions due to the extent of the literature and its wide diffusion as well as to the inaccessibility of the material. Since the worthy work of MILLER, it was especially MÉHELY who made a remarkable effort to clear up the prevalent confusion,

1 when he separated the voles with rooted teeth from the subfamily of Microtinae and united them in a subfamily under the name of Fibrinae. With the suppression of the voles with rooted teeth therefore we can classify the rest into the supergenera Lemmi and Microti following the above mentioned work of MILLER. It is comparatively easy to classify the lemmings under the tribe Lemmi, but we have on the other hand over twenty denominations left under the tribe Microti, names which are used alternatively as genera and subgenera in literature. I was unable to decide for the present which of these can be genuine genera, and which subgenera are to be classified under the genus Microtus, since I had no sufficient material at my disposition. As far as I can see, we have to divide even the subfamily of Microtinae into separate subfamilies : into those of the Lemminae and Microtinae in order to make clearer thereby the tribe Microti as used to-day. Genetic relations of the genus. The only nearest relative of the Pitymys seems to be the Pedomys living in America ; as for their connection the fossil Isodelta (from the Pleistocene strata in America, described by COPE) could give further information ; since they are however known only in fragments of mandibles and these are indentical in morphology with the Pitymys, we have to tyke these fossils also under the Pitymys and to consider the name Isodelta as a synonym of Pitymys. As far as I can judge it on the base of the literature, it is the Hyperacrius living in Tibet which seems to be nearest to the Pitymys out of the Eurasian genera. There are however rather great anatomical differences between the two groups, it is possible that some other groups are to be intercalated into Pitymys and Hyperacrius both systematically and geographically, but it is just as much possible, as I think it more likely, that both genera separated earlier from an older stock, so that we are unable to-day to prove the direct systematic connection between the two. 1 MÉHELY L. v. : Fibrinae Hungáriáé. Budapest, 1914. (The tertiary and quaternary voles of Hungary with rooted teeth.) — Fibrinae Hungáriáé. Die ternären und quartären wurzelzähnigen Wühlmäuse Ungarns. (Ann. hist.-nat. Musei Nat, Hung. XII, 1914, p. 155—243. t. I-VIII.)