UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Volume 7, No. 11, pp. 587-590
November 15, 1954
A New Subspecies of Pocket Mouse from Kansas
BY E. RAYMOND HALL
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE 1954
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, A. Byron Leonard, Robert W. Wilson
Volume 7, No. 11, pp. 587-590 Published November 15, 1954
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas
PRINTED BY FERD VOILAND, JR., STATE PRINTER TOPEKA, KANSAS 1954
25-5678
A New Subspecies of Pocket Mouse from Kansas
by
E. Raymond Hall
When preparing distribution maps for a revised list of the Mammals of Kansas it became apparent to me that pocket mice of the species _Perognathus flavescens_ from south-central Kansas and adjoining parts of Oklahoma were without a subspecific name. The new subspecies is named and described below.
=Perognathus flavescens cockrumi= new subspecies
_Holotype._--Female, subadult (P4 moderately worn), skin with skull, No. 13045, Univ. Kansas Mus. Nat. Hist.; 4-1/2 mi. NE Danville, Harper Co., Kansas; December 1, 1939; obtained by Sam Tihen; original No. 99 of J. A. Tihen.
_Range._--South-central Kansas south at least into Dewey County, Oklahoma.
_Diagnosis._--Size small; upper parts Ochraceous-Buff (capitalized color terms after Ridgway, Color Standards and Color Nomenclature, Washington, D. C., 1912) heavily suffused with black; postauricular patches and a band 8 mm wide on each side Ochraceous-Buff; subauricular spot, underparts, and forefeet white; hind feet slightly dusky; tail brownish above and white below. Skull small; tympanic bullae small; rostrum wide; skull indistinguishable from that of _P. f. flavescens_ from the same latitude in western Kansas.
_Comparisons._--_Perognathus flavescens cockrumi_ averages approximately 12 per cent smaller in linear measurements than the more northern _Perognathus flavescens perniger_ Osgood (from Knox, Stanton and Cumming counties, Nebraska) but color of upper parts is essentially the same. From the more western _Perognathus flavescens flavescens_ Merriam (from Seward, Hamilton and Morton counties, Kansas), _cockrumi_ differs in being darker in all parts of the pelage except on the underparts which are white in both subspecies; the parts of the hairs that are Ochraceous-Buff in _cockrumi_ are Light Ochraceous-Buff in _flavescens_; the back of _cockrumi_ is blackish instead of yellowish. From the more southern _Perognathus flavescens copei_ Rhoads (topotypes examined but not at hand as I write), _cockrumi_ differs in duller more blackish (less bright and less reddish) upper parts. From _Perognathus merriami gilvus_, of more southern distribution, the new subspecies differs in much smaller tympanic bullae and wider rostrum.