Apodemus

Apodemus; Temporal range: Late Miocene - recent
	Wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Infraclass:	Placentalia
Order:	Rodentia
Family:	Muridae
Tribe:	Apodemini
Genus:	Apodemus; Kaup, 1829
Type species
	Mus agrarius;
Species
	About 20, see text

Apodemus is a genus of murid (true mice and rats) containing the field mice as well as other well-known species like the wood mouse and the yellow-necked mouse. The name is unrelated to that of the Mus genus, instead being derived from the Greek ἀπό-δημος (literally away from home).

Taxonomy

Related to the Ryūkyū spiny rats (Tokudaia) and the prehistoric Rhagamys – and far more distantly to Mus and Malacomys^[1] – it includes these species:

Apodemus sensu stricto

Striped field mouse, A. agrarius
Small Japanese field mouse, A. argenteus
Chevrier's field mouse, A. chevrieri

Alsomys

South China field mouse, A. draco
Himalayan field mouse, A. gurkha
Sichuan field mouse, A. latronum
Korean field mouse, A. peninsulae
Taiwan field mouse, A. semotus
Large Japanese field mouse, A. speciosus

Sylvaemus

Alpine field mouse, A. alpicola
Yellow-necked mouse, A. flavicollis – includes A. arianus
Caucasus field mouse, A. hyrcanicus
Ward's field mouse, A. pallipes
Black Sea field mouse, A. ponticus
Wood mouse, A. sylvaticus
Ural field mouse, A. uralensis
- Pygmy field mouse, A. u. microps
- Cimrman Ural field mouse, A. u. cimrmani
Steppe field mouse, A. witherbyi

Karstomys

Western broad-toothed field mouse, A. epimelas
Eastern broad-toothed field mouse, A. mystacinus
Kashmir field mouse, A. rusiges

Incertae sedis

Apodemus avicennicus Darvish, Javidkar & Siahsarvie, 2006

Prehistoric species described from fossil remains include:

A. gorafensis (Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Italy)^[2]
A. dominans (Kolzoi 1959)

References

↑ Steppan et al. (2005)
↑ Alexandra van der Geer; George Lyras; John de Vos; Michael Dermitzakis (2011). Evolution of Island Mammals: Adaptation and Extinction of Placental Mammals on Islands. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781444391282.

Musser, G. G.; Carleton, M. D. (2005). "Superfamily Muroidea". In Wilson, D. E.; Reeder, D. M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 1260. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
Steppan, S.J.; Adkins, R.M.; Spinks, P.Q. & Hale, C. (2005): Multigene phylogeny of the Old World mice, Murinae, reveals distinct geographic lineages and the declining utility of mitochondrial genes compared to nuclear genes. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 37(2): 370–388. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2005.04.016 PDF fulltext
Darvish, J.; Javidkar, M.; Siahsarvie, R. 2006. A new species of wood mouse of the genus Apodemus (Rodentia, Muridae) from Iran Zoology in the Middle East