Taxonomic Study on Subspecies of Dremomys lokriah (Sciuridae,Rodent) From Southwest China--Note With A New Subspecies

This paper peports a result for taxonomic research of subspecies on Orange-bellied Himalayan squirrel (Dremomys lokriah) from southwest China.At the end of the classification of subspecies of Dremomys lokriah,notes in 1965,J.C.Moore and G.H.H.Tate reported only a subspcies (I.e.D.l.lokriah) from south and southwest Tibet in China.Late,Cai Guiquan and Zhang Naizhi (1980) described a new subspecies,D.l.motuoensis,from the Motuo region in southeast Tibet,and Feng Zuojian et al.,(1980,1986) reported a new distribution of D.l.garonum in southeast Tibet.But they believed that the specimens from Zayul,southeast Tibet (belong to D.l.subflaviventris) was a synonym of D.l.garonum (belong to D.l.macmillani by Ellerman 1965),and the specimens from Nielamu,southern Tibet was believed as D.l.lokriah.After comparison and analysis carefully,we believe that D.l.subflaviventris from southeast Tibet and Mt.Gaoligong border between Burma and Yunnan,China was a wild subspecies.It is distinguished from D.l.lokriah by its darker,more brown less chraceous orange dorsal pelage,by shorter Palatal,and by distributive region segregated,and from D.l.macmillani by lacking a middorsal balcklish stripe,and specimens collected from Nielamu,southern Tibet is a new subspecies.So there are 7 subspecies of Dremomys lokriah were described,and four of these subspecies distributed over China.In addition,one form needs to be studied in the future in China.