Published December 31, 2005 | Version v1
Taxonomic treatment Open

Aethomys hindei

Description

Aethomys hindei (Thomas 1902)

[Epimys] hindei Thomas 1902, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 7, 9: 218.

Type Locality: Kenya, Machakos.

Vernacular Names: Hinde's Aethomys.

Synonyms: Aethomys alghazal Wroughton 1907; Aethomys centralis Heller 1914; Aethomys helleri Hollister 1918; Aethomys medicatus Wroughton 1909; Aethomys norae Wroughton 1909.

Distribution: N Cameroon, S Chad, Central African Republic, N and NE Dem. Rep. Congo, S Sudan, SW Ethiopia (Bekele and Schlitter, 1989; Yalden et al., 1996), Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania (no farther south than Muanza); southern limits unresolved. Range abstracted mostly from Davis (1975 b) and Denys and Tranier (1992).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Originally described as a species but later incorrectly arranged as a subspecies of A. kaiseri (e.g., Hollister, 1919; Swynnerton and Hayman, 1951), with which it is sympatric. Actual geographic range of A. hindei is unresolved because many series in museum collections and reported in the literature are misidentified as A. kaiseri. Davis (1975 b) recognized two morphologically distinctive populations as subspecies, one to the east of the Eastern Rift Valley (hindei), and the other to the west (medicatus). Recent preliminary comparisons of cranial and dental traits among geographic samples of A. hindei along with multivariate analyses prompted Denys and Tranier (1992) to suggest that A. hindei likely consists of several species or distinctive geographic populations of one species: hindei, which would be restricted to Kenya; alghazal from N Cameroon, Central African Republic, NE Dem. Rep. Congo, and N Uganda; and medicatus occurring in S Chad, Central African Republic, C Uganda, and SW Kenya. The complex requires critical revisionary study to determine significance of appreciable geographic variation in morphological traits.

Notes

Published as part of Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, pp. 1189-1531 in Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore :The Johns Hopkins University Press on page 1255, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7316535

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Linked records

Additional details

Biodiversity

Family
Muridae
Genus
Aethomys
Kingdom
Animalia
Order
Rodentia
Phylum
Chordata
Scientific name authorship
Thomas
Species
hindei
Taxon rank
species
Taxonomic concept label
Aethomys hindei (Thomas, 1902) sec. Wilson & Reeder, 2005

References

  • Hollister, N. 1918. East African mammals in the United States National Museum. Part I. Insectivora, Chiroptera, and Carnivora. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, 99: 1 - 194, 55 pls.
  • Bekele, A., and D. A. Schlitter. 1989. Two new records of rodents from Kenya and Ethiopia. Mammalia, 53: 113 - 116.
  • Yalden, D. W., M. J. Largen, D. Kock and J. C. Hillman. 1996. Catalogue of the mammals of Ethiopia and Eritrea. 7. Revised checklist, zoogeography and conservation. Tropical Zoology, 9: 73 - 164.
  • Davis, D. H. S. 1975 b. Genus Aethomys Thomas, 1915. Part. 6.6. Pp. 1 - 5, in The mammals of Africa: An identification manual (J. Meester and W. H. Setzer, eds.) [issued 10 Dec. 1975]. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C, not continuously paginated.
  • Denys, C., and M. Tranier. 1992. Presence d'Aethomys (Mammalia, Rodentia, Muridae) au Tchad et analyse morphometrique preliminaire du complexe A. hindei. Mammalia, 56 (4): 626 - 656.
  • Hollister, N. 1919. East African mammals in the United States National Museum. Part II. Rodentia, Lagomorpha, and Tubulidentata. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, 99 (2): 1 - 184.
  • Swynnerton, G. H., and R. W. Hayman. 1951. A checklist of the land mammals of the Tanganyika Territory and the Zanzibar Protectorate. Journal of the East African Natural History Society, 20 (6): 274 - 392.