Ahmad Mahmoudi - National Reference Laboratory of Plague, Tularemia and Q Fever, Research Centre for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Akanlu, Kabudar Ahang, Hamadan, Iran
Boris Kryštufek - Slovenian Museum of Natural History, Prešernova ۲۰, SI-۱۰۰۰ Ljubljana, Slovenia

We reanalyzed 657 base pairs of mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) sequences of the Small Five-toed jerboas Scarturus from Iran, which had been published as Allactaga by Mohammadi et al. (2016) in the Zoology in the Middle East. We show that taxonomic names are available for the three main clusters they recognized: S. hotsoni, S. elater, and S. toussi. The last two species each contained two lineages, both in our analysis as well in those published earlier. We recommend the taxonomic identification of specimens in molecular analyses and call for deposition of voucher material in responsible public collections.

Scarturus, Taxonomy, Phylogeny, Iran