First confirmed record of Père David’s mole, Talpa davidiana (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla), from Lebanon: molecular evidence for a southward range extension
Mammalia, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1515/mammalia-2026-0078
- Dergi Adı: Mammalia
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, BIOSIS, CAB Abstracts, Geobase, Zoological Record, Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO), Natural Science Collection (ProQuest), Biological Science Database (ProQuest), Biomedical Reference Collection: Corporate Edition (EBSCO)
- Anahtar Kelimeler: cytochrome b, Levant, phylogenetics, range extension, subterranean mammal, Talpidae
- Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
The genus Talpa Linnaeus, 1758 comprises fossorial mammals with a complex taxonomic history in the Near East. Among these, Père David’s mole, Talpa davidiana (Milne-Edwards, 1884), is one of the most enigmatic species, with a distribution previously confirmed only from southeastern Anatolia. This study reports the first confirmed recent record of T. davidiana from Lebanon, discovered at an elevation of 1,696 m in the karstic Fnaidek Mountain. A male specimen was examined using both morphological and molecular methods. Morphological analysis revealed a dental formula of 3/3, 1/1, 3/3, 3/3 (40 teeth), highlighting intraspecific dental variation within the species group. Phylogenetic analysis based on mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) sequences unequivocally nested the Lebanese specimen within the nominotypical T. davidiana davidiana clade, showing high similarity (>99 %) to populations from southeastern Türkiye. This discovery extends the known recent range of the species southwards by approximately 400 km, bridging a significant geographic gap between Anatolian populations and Late Pleistocene fossil records in the southern Levant. Our findings suggest that T. davidiana maintains a continuous, though likely fragmented, distribution along the high-altitude Levantine mountain corridor, which may have served as a humid refugium.