Class Mammalia
Order Rodentia
Family Cricetidae
Subfamily Arvicolinae
Synonyms. Clethrionomys rutilus.
Long known under the generic name of Clethrionomys, the red-backed mice have reverted to the earlier name, Myodes (Musser and Carleton 2005).
Rogers et al. (2000) identified the genus from various sites within SAM Cave. Two of the sites are on opposite sides of the Brunhes-Matuyama magnetic polarity reversal, dated at 0.78 mya, putting SAM Cave as one of the oldest occurrences of the genus. Rogers et al. presumed these populations were ancestral to the Southern Red-backed Vole (M. gapperi) that occurs currently in the Southern Rockies, but since the tooth structure was more similar to the northern Boreal Red-backed Vole, gave its identification as Clethrionomys cf. C. rutilus (= Myodes cf. M. rutilus).
Sites.
Medial Irvingtonian: SAM Cave (Rogers et al. 2000: cf.).
Literature. Rogers et al. 2000; Musser and Carleton 2005.
Last Update: 8 Mar 2013