Singing Vole - Evolution

Evolution

The oldest known fossils of singing voles date from the Ionian, around 300,000 years ago, and were found near Fairbanks. During the Ice Ages of the late Pleistocene, singing voles may have been much more widely distributed than today, and fossils have been reported from as far south as Iowa, which was then probably similar in climate to present-day Alaska. The closest living relative of the Singing Vole today is the Insular Vole, which is found only on two small islands off the west coast of Alaska, and probably diverged as those islands were cut off from the Beringia land bridge by rising sea levels.