Talk:Utah prairie dog

Species
I live in southern utah and am very close the a BIG controversy around here. Something I hear is that people think these guys aren't really a separate species. Can someone reference the publication that describes them as a different species. -- FUNK A MATIC      ~talk   18:09, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I added a link to a species description from "Mammalian Species" to the external references section of the article. The article was published in 1975 and gives a detailed description of how the Utah Prairie Dog varies from other prairie dogs. I suspect though that there isn't going to be definitive answer as to whether it is a separate species that would satisfy everybody. In looking around briefly I didn't see any reference to it as a subspecies or references to the controversy that you mention. Could you provide a link? I did look around for the results of DNA testing that might shore up an argument that it is a separate species. I found this:

"Evidence from DNA sequences confirms that, in an evolutionary sense, the black-tailed and the Mexican prairie dogs are closely related to each other, while in the white-tailed group, the white-tailed and the Gunnison's prairie dogs are close relatives, with the Utah prairie dog being a slightly more distand relative of the other two species. ..."

http://books.google.com/books?id=sX3PmE_MbDAC&lpg=PA14&ots=o9MAD-U974&dq=Cynomys%20parvidens%20dna&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q=&f=false

So according to this article the Utah prairie dog is less closely related to other prairie dog species than some other prairie dogs that are recognized as distinct species.--Davefoc (talk) 19:40, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

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