Mogera tokudae Kuroda 1940

Mogera tokudae Kuroda 1940, [A monograph of Japanese mammals ...], Tokyo and Osaka: 196.

Type Locality: Japan, Sado Isl.

Vernacular Names: Sado Mole.

Subspecies::

Subspecies Mogera tokudae subsp. tokudae Kuroda 1940

Subspecies Mogera tokudae subsp. etigo Yoshiyuki and Imaizumi 1991

Distribution: Sado Isl and Echigo Plain, Honshu, C Japan.

Conservation: IUCN – Endangered as M.

Discussion: Overlooked by Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1966); included in Talpa robusta by Corbet (1978 c); but retained as a separate species by Yoshiyuki (1986) and Abe et al. (1991). Yoshiyuki and Imaizumi (1991) named the Honshu population as a separate species, but Abe (1995, 1996) ascribed the differences between the Sado and Honshu population to geographical size variation. However, considerable genetic (Tsuchiya et al., 2000) and karyological differences exist: the karyotype from Sado is 2n = 36, FN = 60, and from Honshu 2n = 36, FN = 54 (Kawada et al., 2001; Tsuchiya, 1988).