Mimomys

Mimomys
Temporal range: Pliocene - Pleistocene, 5.3–.05 Ma
Fossil jaws (IVPP V13990) of M. gansunicus, Paleozoological Museum of China
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Family: Cricetidae
Subfamily: Arvicolinae
Tribe: Arvicolini
Genus: †Mimomys
Forsyth-Major, 1902[1]

Mimomys is an extinct genus of voles that lived in Eurasia and North America during the Plio-Pleistocene. It is believed that one of the many species belonging to this genus gave rise to the modern water voles (Arvicola).[2] Several other prehistoric genera of vole are probably synonymous with Mimomys, including the North American Cosomys[3] and Ophiomys.[4]

Several species are known to have survived into the Late Pleistocene, including M. pyrenaicus of France[5] and M. chandolensis of the Russian Far East, which may have survived as recently as 50,000 BP.[6]

  1. ^ "Mimomys". Fossilworks.
  2. ^ Gray, J.E. (1821). "On the natural arrangement of vertebrose animals". The London Medical Repository Monthly Journal and Review. 15: 296–310.
  3. ^ "Mimomys (Cosomys) primus". Smithsonian.
  4. ^ CHARLES A. REPENNING "Chapter 17," Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2003(279), 469-512, (1 November 2003). https://doi.org/10.1206/0003-0090(2003)279<0469:C>2.0.CO;2
  5. ^ Jeannet, Marcel; Mourre, Vincent (2013). "Mimomys pyrenaicus nov. sp. nouvel arvicolidé (Mammalia, Rodentia) dans le Pléistocène supérieur des Pyrénées (Fréchet-Aure, Hautes-Pyrénées, France)". Paleo. 24 (24): 139–147. doi:10.4000/paleo.2570.
  6. ^ Tiunov, Mikhail; Golenishchev, F.N.; Voyta, Leonid (March 2016). "The First Finding of Mimomys in the Russian Far East". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 61 (1). doi:10.4202/app.00082.2014. S2CID 54511108.