Talpa levantis levantis Thomas, 1906

Kefelioğlu, Haluk, Kryštufek, Boris, Selçuk, Ahmet Yesari, Hutterer, Rainer & Astrin, Jonas J., 2020, Taxonomic revision of the Levant moles of Turkey (Mammalia: Talpidae), Bonn zoological Bulletin 69 (2), pp. 275-291 : 286

Talpa levantis levantis Thomas, 1906

( Fig. 5b )

Talpa caeca levantis Thomas, 1906:416 . Type locality is “Scalita, S. of Trebizond ”, now “Altındere, south of Trabzon, Turkey ” ( Kryštufek & Vohralik 2001:100). The type is a skin and skull in the Natural History Museum London (No. 6.3.6.5); type was seen.

Talpa levantis : Spitzenberger, 1973 (in Felten et al. 1973:229). First use of current name combination.

Diagnosis. Identical to the Central lineage of Talpa levantis as retrieved in the phylogenetic analysis of the mitochondrial Cyt b gene. In our dataset, the subspecies levantis has unique mutations in comparison with sequences of both ssp. transcaucasica and T. l. dogramacii new subspecies at 6 positions of our Cyt b alignment (see Appendix II): 150:C, 447:T, 852:G, 933:G, 990:T, 1020:T.

Description and comparison. Similar to the remaining subspecies and the differences are on average. The nominotypical subspecies differs significantly from ssp. transcaucasica in four linear variables (H&B, HfL, CbL, MxT) and both quotients (MxT%, RoM%) in males and in two linear variables (CbL, MxT) in females. The nominotypical subspecies attained higher means in all comparisons but had a relatively shorter maxillary tooth-row (MxT%) than ssp. transcaucasica . For comparison with T. l. dogramacii ssp. nov. see under that subspecies.

Distribution. The Black Sea coast and mountains from vicinity of Zonguldak to Trabzon. Endemic to Turkey.

Figures

Fig. 5. The 95% confidence ellipses for dispersion of scores of four operational taxonomic units of Talpa levantis onto the first two discriminant axes derived from discriminant factor analyses of log10-transformed cranial variables. The proportion of variance explained by an axis is in parentheses. The ellipse for the Lake Van sample is shown by a dashed line.