The Gansu mole (''Scapanulus oweni'') is a species of

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

in the family

Talpidae The family (biology), family Talpidae () includes the true Mole (animal), moles (as well as the shrew moles and desmans) who are small insectivore, insectivorous mammals of the order (biology), order Eulipotyphla. Talpids are all fossorial, diggi ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to central

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, where it occurs in

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

, and

Qinghai Qinghai is an inland Provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. It is the largest provinces of China, province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xin ...

. It is the only species in the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

''Scapanulus''. Along with the

Medog mole The Medog mole (''Alpiscaptulus medogensis'') is a species of mammal in the family Talpidae. It is the only member of the genus ''Alpiscaptulus''. It is endemic to Tibet, where it is only found in the vicinity of Namcha Barwa in Medog County. ...

(''Alpiscaptulus medogensis''), which is also found in the mountains of China, the Gansu mole is the only member of the

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

Scalopini The Scalopini are a tribe of moles belonging to the family Talpidae. They include all the New World moles apart from the strikingly distinctive star-nosed mole. As the similarity of the names implies, they are the standard form of the Scalopin ...

to not live in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. Phylogenetic and fossil evidence indicates that the scalopine moles evolved in

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

and migrated to North America during the

Neogene The Neogene ( ,) is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period million years ago. It is the second period of th ...

; however, the Gansu and Medog moles are not relict Eurasian scalopine moles, but are descendants of North American scalopine moles that migrated back to Eurasia; the

hairy-tailed mole The hairy-tailed mole (''Parascalops breweri''), also known as Brewer's mole, is a medium-sized North American mole. It is the only member of the genus ''Parascalops''. The species epithet ''breweri'' refers to Thomas Mayo Brewer, an American ...

(''Parascalops breweri'') of North America is more closely related to them than it is to the other two North American scalopine genera. Phylogenetic evidence supports the Gansu and Medog moles being the closest living relatives of one another and diverging the mid-late

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

, about 11.59 million years ago. It is thought that the uplift of the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of H ...

and the subsequent

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

isolated the two genera in different habitats, leading to their divergence. The habitats for both species may have served as refugia during periods of

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate be ...

, allowing them to persist while most other Eurasian scalopines went extinct. The morphology of the Gansu mole indicates that it will fall in the Scalopini tribe. All scolopines are distributed in Central America;however, Gansu moles are distributed in the Central and Southwest areas of China. The first specimen of ''Scapanulus oweni'' was found by G. Fenwick Owen in 1911 in Gansu, China. The genome of the species is 16,826 bases in length and contains 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes and a displacement loop gene.He, K., Wang, J., Su, W., Li, Q., Nie, W., & Jiang, X. (2012). Karyotype of the Gansu mole (Scapanulus oweni): Further evidence for karyotypic stability in talpid bstract Karyotype of the Gansu Mole (Scapanulus Oweni): Further Evidence for Karyotypic Stability in Talpid, 37(4), 341–348. doi:10.3106/041.037.0408

References

Mammals described in 1912 Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas Mammals of China Talpidae Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{soricomorpha-stub