Geomys bursarius majusculus Swenk
Geomys bursarius majusculus Swenk, Missouri Valley Fauna, 1:6, December 5, 1939; Hibbard, Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 47:74, 1944.
Geomys bursarius, Baird, Expls. and surveys for a railroad route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, pt. 1, Mammals, 377, 1857; Merriam, North Amer. Fauna, 8:120, January, 1895; Lantz, Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 19:175, 1905; Lantz, Kansas State Agric. College Bull., 129:335, April, 1905; Scheffer, Kansas State Agric. College Ento. and Zoöl. Dept. Bull., 172:199, September, 1910; Hibbard, Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 36:240, 1933; Allen, Kansas State Teachers College Emporia Bull. Inf. Stud. in Educ., 20 (no. 5):15, May, 1940.
Geomys bursarius bursarius, Black, 30th Bienn. Rept. Kansas State Board Agric., 35:181, 1937.
Geomys breviceps, Baird, Expls. and surveys for a railroad route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, pt. 1, Mammals, 380, 1857.
Type locality.—Lincoln, Lancaster County, Nebraska.
Distribution in Kansas.—Northeastern Kansas, westward certainly to Clay and Marion counties and southward certainly to Greenwood County.
Description.—Color: Upper parts Mummy Brown in fresh appearing pelage of February but in more worn pelage of March more reddish being near (16') Prout's Brown; top of head and sometimes back darker than rest of upper parts; underparts usually with some whitish anteriorly; fore and hind feet and approximately distal half of tail white. Size: Large, total length averaging more than 280 mm. in males and 257 in females; hind foot averaging 35 mm. or more in males. Skull: Large; rostrum averaging more than twice as long as wide; sagittal crest high in males and barely present in females; occiput vertical when skull is laid top down; least width of braincase less than distance from alveolus of upper incisor to middle of lateral border of P4 at alveolar border.
Comparisons.—From Geomys bursarius lutescens, majusculus differs as follows: Color darker, Mummy Brown to Prout's Brown instead of Buckthorn Brown. In both sexes: head and body a fifth to a sixth longer; hind foot 5 to 6 per cent longer; skull averaging larger in all parts measured except that premaxillae (in each subspecies) extend equally far posteriorly to nasals; diastema longer in relation to basilar length; rostrum longer relative to its width; sagittal crest higher; rostrum often more depressed distally; angle of suture between maxilla and jugal more obtuse.
From G. b. bursarius, according to Swenk (1939:6), majusculus differs in larger size.
From G. b. illinoensis, majusculus, according to Komarek and Spencer (1931:405), differs in brownish instead of slate-gray coloration and in two cranial characters as follows: Nasals straight-sided instead of shaped like an hour-glass, and superficial canals on palatine extending anteriorly beyond first molar, and from there anteriorly more or less separated. The first of these characters does not always hold; occasional individuals of majusculus, for example some from Douglas County, have the nasals shaped like an hour-glass.
From G. breviceps dutcheri, majusculus differs in larger size (hind foot more than 33 mm. in males, and 29 in females; basilar length more than 42 mm. in males and 36 in females); dorsal exposure of jugal longer than width of rostrum measured between ventral margins of infraorbital foramina.
From G. bursarius major of southcentral Kansas (for example Harvey County), majusculus differs in slightly darker color, being Mummy Brown instead of Prout's Brown; size larger (in males total length more than 284 mm., hind foot 35 or more, basilar length of skull more than 42, and in females total length 265 or more, hind foot averaging 33 or more, and basilar length 40 or more).
Skull: Averaging larger in all parts measured, except that premaxillae do not extend so far posteriorly to nasals in either males or females; interorbital constriction slightly narrower in adult females; temporal ridges forming a more prominent sagittal crest in adult males (sagittal crest barely present in some adult males of major from Harper County).
Remarks.—In employing the subspecific name majusculus we are following Swenk (1939:6) who on the basis of larger size differentiated the animals from southeastern South Dakota, the eastern parts of Nebraska and Kansas, and the western and southern parts of Iowa, from G. bursarius bursarius to which he assigned a more northern geographic range. In the absence of comparative materials of the northern subspecies we cannot make an independent decision on the validity of majusculus and recognize that if it is inseparable from G. b. bursarius the latter name will apply to specimens from northeastern Kansas. We are the more uncertain about applying the name majusculus to specimens from eastern Kansas because they average smaller than topotypes. Only at the northeasternmost locality in Kansas (3 mi. N Cummings, Atchison County) do specimens average as large as topotypes of majusculus. Farther southward they become progressively smaller in eastern Kansas, and we interpret this as intergradation with the still smaller subspecies major, to the southwest. The average external measurements of two adult males from Atchison County are: 321-99-35. Thirty-six miles farther south, in Douglas County, 16 adult males average 289-80-36. From Hamilton, Greenwood County, 80 miles farther southwest, nine adult males average 284-83-35. The maximum total length recorded at these three localities is: Atchison County, 342 (1 of 2 specimens), Douglas County, 308 (1 of 16 specimens), Greenwood County, 357 (in coll. of Dr. Glenn C. Rinker and 1 of 15 males of all ages involved). It will be seen, therefore, that although there is a trend to smaller average size toward the southward, the maximum of 357 millimeters total length at Hamilton exceeds the maximum of 352 millimeters recorded by Swenk (1939:3) among 86 males at Lincoln where the recorded average is largest.
Four specimens from Salina (Debold Farm) are intermediate structurally, as they are also geographically, between G. b. majusculus on the one hand and Geomys bursarius lutescens and Geomys bursarius major on the other hand. In color they agree with majusculus, as they do also in width of nasals posteriorly, in more obtuse angle of the rostrum and maxillary arm of the zygomatic arch. They agree with G. b. lutescens in having the occiput inclined anterodorsally, and are intermediate between majusculus and lutescens, but nearer the latter in size of skull and in length of the rostrum relative to its width.
Specimens examined.—Total number, 148, as follows: Clay County: 6 mi. SW Clay Center, 3. Jackson County: 10-1/2 mi. WSW Holton, 1; no locality more precise than county, 1. Atchison County: 3 mi. N Cummings, 2. Jefferson County: Oskaloosa, 1. Leavenworth County: Fort Leavenworth (Government Hill, 2; Engineer Hill, 1), 6; no locality more precise than county, 19. Saline County: Salina, Debold Farm, 4 (coll. of A. J. Kirn). Morris County: 1-1/2 mi. N Council Grove, 3. Douglas County: 1 mi. NW Midland, 2; 1 mi. N Lawrence, 1; 2-1/2 mi. W Lawrence, 2; 1 mi. W K. U. Campus, 2; 1 mi. W Lawrence, 2; 1/2 mi. W Lawrence, 2; "W K. U. Campus," 2; K. U. Campus, 4; Lawrence, 23; South Lawrence, 1; 1/2 mi. SW K. U. Campus, 2; Southwest K. U. Campus, 1; Haskell Institute, 1; 4-1/2 mi. S Lawrence, 1; 7 mi. SW Lawrence, 6; 7-1/2 mi. SW Lawrence, 1; 8 mi. SW Lawrence, 1; 10 mi. S Lawrence, 1; 11 mi. SW Lawrence, 3; no locality more precise than county, 15. Marion County: 1-1/2 mi. NE Lincolnville, 6; 4 mi. SE Lincolnville, 1; 6 mi. S Lincolnville, 1. Greenwood County: Hamilton, 1; 1/2 mi. S Hamilton, 4; 1 mi. S Hamilton, 4; 4 mi. S and 14 mi. W Hamilton, 6; 8 mi. SW Toronto, 1; 8-1/2 mi. SW Toronto, 5; no locality more precise than county, 6.