The Pallas's cat (Otocolobus manul)
Felis manul was the scientific name used by Peter Simon Pallas in 1776, who first described a Pallas's cat that he had encountered near the Dzhida River southeast of Lake Baikal. Several Pallas's cat zoological specimens were subsequently described:
Felis nigripectus proposed by Brian Houghton Hodgson in 1842 was based on three specimens from Tibet.
Otocolobus manul ferrugineus proposed by Sergey Ognev in 1928 was an erythristic specimen from the Kopet Dag mountains.
Otocolobus was proposed by Johann Friedrich von Brandt in 1842 as a generic name. Reginald Innes Pocock recognized the taxonomic rank of Otocolobus in 1907, described several Pallas's cat skulls in detail and considered the Pallas's cat an aberrant form of Felis.
In 1951, John Ellerman and Terence Morrison-Scott considered
the nominate subspecies Felis manul manul to be distributed from Russian Turkestan to Transbaikalia;
F. m. nigripecta to be distributed in Tibet and Kashmir;
F. m. ferruginea occurring from southwestern Turkestan and the Kopet Dag mountains to Afghanistan and Balochistan.
Since 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group recognises only two subspecies as valid taxa, namely:
O. m. manul syn. O. m. ferrugineus in the western and northern part of Central Asia from Iran to Mongolia;
O. m. nigripectus in the Himalayas from Kashmir to Bhutan.
The Pallas's cat (Otocolobus manul)
Felis manul was the scientific name used by Peter Simon Pallas in 1776, who first described a Pallas's cat that he had encountered near the Dzhida River southeast of Lake Baikal. Several Pallas's cat zoological specimens were subsequently described:
Felis nigripectus proposed by Brian Houghton Hodgson in 1842 was based on three specimens from Tibet.
Otocolobus manul ferrugineus proposed by Sergey Ognev in 1928 was an erythristic specimen from the Kopet Dag mountains.
Otocolobus was proposed by Johann Friedrich von Brandt in 1842 as a generic name. Reginald Innes Pocock recognized the taxonomic rank of Otocolobus in 1907, described several Pallas's cat skulls in detail and considered the Pallas's cat an aberrant form of Felis.
In 1951, John Ellerman and Terence Morrison-Scott considered
the nominate subspecies Felis manul manul to be distributed from Russian Turkestan to Transbaikalia;
F. m. nigripecta to be distributed in Tibet and Kashmir;
F. m. ferruginea occurring from southwestern Turkestan and the Kopet Dag mountains to Afghanistan and Balochistan.
Since 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group recognises only two subspecies as valid taxa, namely:
O. m. manul syn. O. m. ferrugineus in the western and northern part of Central Asia from Iran to Mongolia;
O. m. nigripectus in the Himalayas from Kashmir to Bhutan.