The Field Mice (Apodemus) in Wuliang Mountain With A Discussion of A.orestes

The palaearctic field mice (genus Apodemus) mainly have a palaearctic distribution and marginally occur in Oriental region in southern China and the Himalayas.Among Chinese Apodemus,A.orestes is often aligned with A.draco.This paper is designed to clarify the systematic problems of A.orestes based on 245 specimens collected in Wuliang Mountain,Central Yunnan.Of the specimens,147 with complete skulls have been used for multivariate and monovariate analyses.The principal component analysis gave out two groups,A.chevrieri and dracoorestes group,while the discriminant analysis showed that all specimens were correctly classified in A.chevrieri,A.draco and A.orestes with the former widely different from the latter two.An univariate analysis demonstrated that A.draco and A.orestes had significant difference in head and body length (t=78.359,P<0.001),tail length (t=71.555,P<0.001),the rate of tail length to head and body length (t=70.550,P<0.001),cranial breadth (t=75.886,P=0.025) and palatal bridge length (t=60.803,P=0.030).Apodemus draco has a wide distribution in Wuliang Mountain,which overlaps with A.chevrieri in lower elevations less than 2300 m in farmlands and jungle habitat,overlaps with A.orestes in higher elevations over 2450 m in forest habitat.Therefore,Apodemus orestes is a valid species.