Talpa aquitania, Nicolas, Martinez-Vargas et Hugot, 2015

Nicolas, Violaine, Martínez-Vargas, Jessica & Hugot, Jean-Pierre, 2017, Talpa aquitania sp. nov. (Talpidae, Soricomorpha), a new mole species from SW France and N Spain, Mammalia (Warsaw, Poland) 81 (6), pp. 641-642 : 641-642

Talpa aquitania

Holotype

MNHN-ZM-2016-471 ( VN 1789). Collected in 2013. France-86280, Saint-Benoît , 46.546°N- 0.348°W. Adult female: whole body preserved in ethanol.

Paratypes

Tissues preserved in ethanol and RnaLater; skulls extracted (national collection number, field number, date of collect, locality and district of collection, geographic coordinates, name of collector, age and sex). MNHN-ZM-2016-472 (YA0346). 06/10/2013, France- 63320, Creste, Issoire , 45.550°N- 3.043°W, Bernard Pradier, adult female . MNHN-ZM-2016-473 (YA0386). 13/04/2014, France- 63190, Lezoux, alt. 833 m, 45.828°N- 3.380°W, J-Michel Georgeon, adult female .

Diagnosis and distribution

Talpa aquitania can unambiguously be distinguished from its sister-related species, Talpa europaea Linnaeus 1758 and Talpa occidentalis Cabrera 1907 , by a unique combination of characters:

The eyelids are fused together. As observed in Talpa occidentalis , the eye is completely covered by membranes. This characteristic differs from what is observed in Talpa europaea , which has open eyes.

Base composition of 16 positions of the cytochrome b gene differ between Talpa aquitania and the two other species (based on 216 specimens of Talpa europaea , 118 specimens of T. aquitania and 26 specimens of Talpa occidentalis ; Nicolas et al. 2017). Base composition at positions 87, 171, 176, 282, 309, 328, 351, 369, 465, 492, 745, 813, 828, 981, 1047 and 1074 is C, G, C, G, T, T, A, A, T, C, T, G, C, A, T, T in T. aquitania , and it is A, A, T, A, C, A, G, G, C, T, C, A, T, T, C, C in both T. europaea and T. occidentalis .

Talpa aquitania is present in France southward and westward of the Loire River, and in Northern Spain.