Korean Red-backed Vole

The Korean red-backed vole, Craseomys regulus, is a Korean-endemic member of the hamster and vole family Cricetidae. It is also called the royal vole or southern red-backed vole. Oldfield Thomas described it in 1907 from a specimen collected near Mungyeong, about 170 km southeast of Seoul. Modern catalogues place it in Craseomys, subgenus Phaulomys, although older Korean literature may list it under Eothenomys or Myodes (Mammal Diversity Database; Korean mammal review).

The species is known only from the Korean Peninsula. Its restricted range makes correct separation from Korea's other red-backed voles important, especially when interpreting older surveys written under different generic combinations. Korean studies have examined its chromosomes and taxonomic relationships, but the opened sources do not provide a sufficiently complete species-level account of habitat, diet, breeding or body measurements for this profile. Those details are omitted rather than reconstructed from other Craseomys species (Mammal Diversity Database; Mammal Study 1999).