The Duke of Bedford's vole (''Proedromys bedfordi'') is a species of

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...

in the family

Cricetidae The Cricetidae are a family of rodents in the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. It includes true hamsters, voles, lemmings, muskrats, and New World rats and mice. At almost 608 species, it is the second-largest family of mammals, and h ...

. It is found only in mountainous parts of central China. It is a rare species and the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of nat ...

has assessed its conservation status as being " vulnerable".

Description

The Duke of Bedford's vole has a head-and-body length of between and a tail length of . The dorsal fur is long and a dull shade of mid-brown, the underparts are whitish-grey. The upper surface of both fore and hind feet is whitish, and the tail is bicoloured, being brown above and whitish below. The skull is robust, the broad incisors are recurved and have grooves on their outer surfaces, and the molars have no roots and continue to grow throughout the animal's life.

Distribution and habitat

The Duke of Bedford's vole is a rare species and is known from only three localities in China; two of these are in southern

Gansu Province Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibeta ...

and northern

Sichuan Province Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

, and the third is the Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve, where the vole was discovered for the first time in 2003. It is a forest dweller and has been found at elevations between . It is also known from

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

ised remains and appears to have been more plentiful in the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

age than it is now.

Status

Very little is known of this vole, the size of the total population, the population trend and the area of occupancy. Its extent of occurrence is probably under . The main threat it faces is the destruction of its mountain habitat by logging or conversion to cropland. Because of its small area of occurrence and these other factors, the

has assessed the vole's conservation status as being " vulnerable".

References

*Musser, G. G. and M. D. Carleton. 2005. Superfamily Muroidea. pp. 894–1531 ''in'' Mammal Species of the World a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder eds. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. {{Taxonbar, from=Q1764072 Proedromys Mammals described in 1911 Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas Rodents of China Endemic fauna of China Taxonomy articles created by Polbot