A study of intraspecies variations of Indian gerbil, Tatera indica Hardwicke, 1807 (Muridae, Rodentia) in Eastern Border of Iran.

In this study, 93 specimens of adult Indian Gerbil (Tatera indica) were collected by live-trap from different localities of Eastern Border of Iran. Specimens were collected among 3 populations from Torbat-e-Jam, Sistan and Chabahar with North longitude 60 degrees-61.5 degrees and East latitude 25.50 degrees-35.50 degrees. At first, external and cranial characters were measured and then ratio of measured characters to head and body length were calculated. It showed that there are differences in characters of Indian gerbils in various latitudes while ratio of measured characters to head and body length were compared between these 3 populations. These differences are more obvious in Chabahar so that 16 from 23 characters are significantly higher than those in Torbat-e-Jam and Sistan and 3 characters are significantly lower than those from two other localities. Also, 4 characters have no significant difference in these populations. The result of MANCOVA showed that there are no significant differences between sexes. This study tries to shed some more light on the effect of climate changes and height on morphometric changes of Indian gerbil in Eastern border of Iran.