Steatomys pratensis Peters 1846
Authors/Creators
Description
Steatomys pratensis Peters 1846
Steatomys pratensis Peters 1846, Bericht Verhandl. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 11: 258.
Type Locality: Mozambique, Zambezi River, Tete.
Vernacular Names: Common African Fat Mouse.
Synonyms: Steatomys edulis Peters 1852; Steatomys leucorhynchus Hill and Carter 1937; Steatomys maunensis Roberts 1932; Steatomys natalensis Roberts 1929; Steatomys nyasae Lawrence and Loveridge 1953.
Distribution: Southern and East Africa—S Angola (Carter and Hill, 1941) and N Namibia; eastward through N Botswana (Smithers, 1971), Zimbabwe (Smithers and Wilson, 1979), N South Africa (Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, and N KwaZulu-Natal; de Graaff, 1997 ff; Taylor, 1998), and Mozambique (Smithers and Lobao Tello, 1976); north through Zambia (Ansell, 1978), Malawi (Ansell and Dowsett, 1988; Chitaukali et al., 2001; Lawrence and Loveridge, 1953), and Tanzania (AMNH material) to EC Ethiopia (Demeter, 1982).
Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).
Discussion: Formerly included bocagei and opimus (see those accounts). Demeter (1982) identified the lone Ethiopian record (Sabober Plains, Awash National Park) as S. pratensis because of their large skull size compared with S. parvus; his range of values match those for S. pratensis in the AMNH, not the larger S. opimus which occurs no closer than extreme SW Sudan. Although leucorhynchus is usually included in S. krebsii (Coetzee, 1977 a; Meester et al., 1986), Crawford-Cabral (1998) provisionally recognized it as a species because relative ear length of the holotype (Angola, Capelongo) is more similar to S. pratensis; he also suggested that leucorhynchus may prove to be another geographic sample of the latter. After studying the holotype of leucorhynchus and others from Capelongo (AMNH 85815, 85816, 86976) in S Angola, we agree with that assessment. We have not seen material between Ethiopia and the West African S. caurinus; that region is mostly occupied by the much larger-bodied S. opimus. Identified from the early Pleistocene of South Africa based on isolated molars (Avery, 1998).
Notes
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Linked records
Additional details
Identifiers
Related works
- Is part of
- Book chapter: 10.5281/zenodo.7316535 (DOI)
- Book chapter: http://publication.plazi.org/id/1754DB44AD431D0BCB952D53A5D6688B (URL)
- Is source of
- https://biodiversitypmc.sibils.org/collections/plazi/B2D055EE0FB48A8D34B318A2BC17262E (URL)
- https://www.gbif.org/species/231525379 (URL)
Biodiversity
- Scientific name authorship
- Peters
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Order
- Rodentia
- Family
- Nesomyidae
- Genus
- Steatomys
- Species
- pratensis
- Taxon rank
- species
- Taxonomic concept label
- Steatomys pratensis Peters, 1846 sec. Wilson & Reeder, 2005
References
- Peters, W. C. H. 1852. Reise nach Mossambique. I. Saugethiere. Druck & Verlag, Berlin, 202 pp.
- Hill, J. E., and T. D. Carter. 1937. Ten new rodents from Angola, Africa. American Museum Novitates, 913: 9 pp.
- Roberts, A. 1929. New forms of African mammals. Annals of the Transvaal Museum, 13: 82 - 121.
- Lawrence, B., and A. Loveridge. 1953. Zoological results of a fifth expedition to East Africa. I. Mammals from Nyasaland and Tete. With notes on the genus Otomys. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, 110: 1 - 80.
- Hill, J. E., and T. D. Carter. 1941. The mammals of Angola, Africa. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 78 (1): 1 - 211.
- Smithers, R. H. N. 1971. The mammals of Botswana. Museum Memoir, National Museums of Rhodesia, Salisbury, 4: 1 - 340.
- Smithers, R. H. N., and V. J. Wilson. 1979. Checklist and atlas of the mammals of Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Museum Memoir, National Museums and Monuments of Rhodesia, Salisbury, 9: 1 - 193.
- Smithers, R. H. N., and J. L. P. Lobao Tello. 1976. Check list and atlas of the mammals of Mozambique. Museum Memoir, National Museums and Monuments of Rhodesia, Salisbury, 8: 1 - 184.
- Ansell, W. F. H. 1978. The mammals of Zambia. National Parks and Wildlife Service, Chilanga, 126 pp.
- Ansell, W. F. H., and R. J. Dowsett. 1988. Mammals of Malawi: An annotated check list and atlas. Trendrine Press, Zennor, St. Ives, United Kingdom, 170 pp.
- Chitaukali, W. N., H. Burda, and D. Kock. 2001. On small mammals of the Nyika Plateau, Malawi. Pp. 415 - 426, in African small mammals- - Petits mammiferes africains (C. Denys, L. Granjon, and A. Poulet, eds.) .. Collection Colloques et Seminaires, IRD Editions, Paris, 570 pp.
- Coetzee, C. G. 1977 a. Genus Steatomys. Part 6.8. Pp. 1 - 4, in The mammals of Africa: An identification manual (J. Meester and H. W. Setzer, eds.) [issued 22 Aug 1977]. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C., not continuously paginated.
- Meester, J. A. J., I. L. Rautenbach, N. J. Dippenaar, and C. M. Baker. 1986. Classification of southern African mammals. Transvaal Museum Monograph, 5: 1 - 359.
- Crawford-Cabral, J. 1998. The Angolan rodents of the superfamily Muroidea: An account of their distribution. Instituto de Investigacao Cientifica Tropical, Estudos, Ensaios e Documentos, 161: 223 pp.
- Avery, D. M. 1998. An assessment of the lower Pleistocene micromammalian fauna from Swartkrans Members 1 - 3, Gauteng, South Africa. Geobios, 31 (3): 393 - 414.