Iranian edible dormouse

It was long considered conspecific with the European edible dormouse (G. glis) until a 2021 phylogenetic study supported it being a distinct species. The American Society of Mammalogists has accepted these results.[1]

It is thought to have diverged from G. glis during a fragmentation of the ancestral Glis population (likely triggered by the Messinian salinity crisis) during the late Miocene, about 5.74 million years ago. Despite being restricted to a relatively small refugium on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, it managed to persist in this refugium for millions of years, throughout all of the Pliocene and the glacial-interglacial dynamics of the Pleistocene.[2][3]

Significant genetic divergence also occurs within this species; populations from eastern Iran and western Iran display a deep divergence of about 1.19 million years ago. This indicates that further splitting is likely within G. persicus.[2]

It is restricted to the Caspian Hyrcanian mixed forests ecoregion, which served as a likely refugium for it during the original range fragmentation of Glis. It ranges from southernmost Azerbaijan to throughout most of Iran's Caspian Sea coast, and into Turkmenistan.[2]

Most members of this species have a largely black tail, in contrast to the greyish tails of most of G. glis (aside from Italian populations, which also have blackish tails).[2]