Botta's Dipodil
Dipodillus bottai (Lataste, 1882)
First described in: Le Naturaliste (Paris) vol.4 p.36
Botta's gerbil (Dipodillus bottai) is a species of gerbil endemic to Sudan and possibly northern Kenya. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, it was listed as Least Concern in 1996 until it was listed as Data Deficient in 2004. According to a 2013 book, it is known from a few specimens taken from four or five localities in a small area between the rivers White Nile and Blue Nile; its habitat is fields of vegetables and cereals. Aside from this information, nothing else is known about the species including its population and threats.
Descriptions from checklists and floras indexed by GBIF
discussion
Discussion: Subgenus Petteromys. F. Petter (1975 b) listed harwoodi and bottai as species and considered luteolus as a synonym of D. campestris. Kock (1978) included luteolus and harwoodi in D. bottai. Lay (1983: 339) claimed the holotype of harwoodi lacks an accessory tympanum but holotype of luteolus has an accessory tympanum, and cannot represent the same species. Lay had not examined the holotype of bottai and rendered the conclusion that " because of the middle ear characters one of the two forms listed by Kock (1978) cannot be synonymous, perhaps neither are. " He preferred to regard D. bottai " as valid and monotypic pending revision, " and listed harwoodi as a species and luteolus as a synonym of D. stigmonyx. Pavlinov et al. (1990) reviewed the species and discussed harwoodi, luteolus, and stigmonyx under D. bottai.
Order Rodentia - Family Muridae
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
Botta's gerbil is a small species with sandy-brown upper parts with a blackish sheen, especially at the mid-line, and pure white underparts and limbs. The long tail is slightly bi-coloured, with dark hairs above and pale hairs below, the hairs at the tip forming a small tuft or pencil.
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Every page naming Dipodillus bottai in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
From the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and occurrence records (GBIF.org), with Wikipedia and the Source Library. GBIF species 4264989.