We studied phenotypic relationships among 13 samples of two rock mice species:Apodemus mystacinus (Danford and Alston, 1877) from Anatolia (n = 38) andA. epimelas (Nehring, 1902) from the Balkans (n = 71). Cartesian coordinates of landmarks were collected on the skull and on the occlusal projection of the upper molars (18 landmarks). Centroid size (a measure of overall size) suggested that molars vary independently of overall skull size in both species. Discriminant function analysis on relative warp scores classified >80% of specimens into the correct species, with the best results obtained for the ventral aspect of the skull and for molars. Projection of the 1st discriminant function scores against centroid size provided good separation between the two species. Analysis of vector displacements associated with extremes of variation suggested considerable phenetic differences on the ventral side of the skull and in the molar shape of the two species. The great majority of shifts in landmarks were in a longitudinal direction and the rearrangements of molar cusps were more complex than was the case with the cranium. A bivariate plot of the posterior hard palate length against the incisive foramen length separatedA. mystacinus andA. epimelas well.
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