Acomys (Acomys) russatus (Wagner, 1840)

20. Golden Spiny Mouse, Acomys (Acomys) russatus (Wagner, 1840) View in CoL

(IUCN Red List: LC)

Subspecies: A. r. lewisi Atallah, 1967 .

Distribution: Terraces of black lava rocks in the southwest region ( Fig. 26 View FIGURE 26 ).

Previous records: Al-Bargasha and Sakra ( Shehab et al. 2018).

Remarks: Burgin et al. (2020) synonymized lewisi with the nominal subspecies, quoting Qumsiyeh et al. (1986). This reference claims that russatus and lewisi are conspecific but not con-subspecific. Later on, Qumsiyeh (1996) quoted A. russatus lewisi as a valid subspecies, which is extremely distinctive being melanistic and isolated in the hamad and lava rocks.

Acomys dimidiatus is listed for Syria by Musser & Carleton (2005) and Cassola (2016) but with no details. On the other hand, dimidiatus was not mapped for the country by Map of Life (MOL: https://mol.org/species/ Acomys_ dimidiatus ) and Al-Jumaily (1998) explicitly denied its presence in Syria. Similarly, Bates (1994) in his thorough compilation of locality records of spiny mice, stated for A. cahirinus (with dimidiatus as a junior synonym) “no exact locality” in Syria. The species is listed from Syria by VertNet (2023); however, our investigation revealed that those specimens were obtained from Wady Kerak, Dead Sea in Jordan. We were unable to confirm the occurrence of A. dimidiatus in Syria.