A study on ecology, morphology and morphometry of Acomys dimidiatus Cretzschmar, 1826 (Rodentia: Muridae) in Geno sanctuary and Minab County, Hormozgan Province, Iran

In the present study, two populations of Acomys dimidiatus from different locations of Hormozgan Province (Geno sanctuary and Minab County) were compared according to their morphometric, morphological and ecological characteristics. Fifty eight specimens of adult A. dimidiatus were collected by live traps (Sherman traps, Havahart traps and locally made traps) from these regions. We caught the rodents from the height ranging from <100 to >1500 meters. According to our field observations, the studied species was mostly nocturnal. At first, five external and fifteen cranial- dental characters were measured, then ratios of measured characters to head and body length were calculated. The normality of data was analyzed by Kolmogorov- Smironov test. Descriptive statistics were calculated for characters and ratios. The results showed that the average of 14 out of 20 characters in Minab specimens was greater than Geno specimens. Also, the average of all of the ratios (20 ratios) in Minab specimens was greater than that of Geno region. Independent Sample T-Test was used to test the statistical significance between length and ratios. The results indicated that there were significance differences in five out of twenty characters and nine out of twenty ratios in two regions(P<0.05). In addition, MANOVA test revealed significant differences among the studied populations (P<0.05). Also, intraspecific variations were assessed with the principal components analysis (PCA). The first two principal components accounted for more than 60% of the total variance and the species were fairly well separated by them.