Calabria pine vole

The Calabria pine vole (Microtus brachycercus) is a vole found in southern and central Italy initially described by Lehmann as a subspecies of M. savii. Genetic tests in the Calabrian region found, although similar, the X chromosome is larger than that of samples of M. savii found elsewhere in Italy and the Y chromosome is twice the size, leading Galleni in 1994 to designate M. brachycercus as a separate species.