Tim Melling – Thomas’s Pika

Tim writes: Thomas’s Pika (Ochotona thomasi) is yet another mammal with barely any published photographs.  It is a Chinese endemic, being restricted to isolated forested peaks within a relatively small area.  It was only described new to science in 1948 but that was mainly due to its similarity to other Pika species.  In fact we weren’t sure of its identity until we sent photographs to Pika expert Vladimir Dinets who confirmed  this as Thomas’s Pika, mainly on the basis of its very narrow face, visible here. 

Pikas look rather rodent-like but they are actually lagomorphs like rabbits, but they are only gerbil-sized.  Thomas’s Pika was named in 1948 by the Russian zoologist A. I. Argyropulo in honou of the late British Mammalogist F.R.O. Thomas (1858-1929) who worked at the Natural History Museum in London and described more than 2000 small mammals new to science.

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