Coccymys albidens (Tate 1951)

[Melomys] albidens Tate 1951, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 97: 286.

Type Locality: New Guinea, Prov. of Papua (= Irian Jaya), Snow Mtns, 15 mi (24 km) N Mt Wilhelmina, Lake Habbema, 3225 m.

Vernacular Names: White-toothed Coccymys.

Distribution: New Guinea, Prov. of Papua (= Irian Jaya); known only from the N slopes of the Snow Mtns (Pegunungan Maoke) at the type locality and downslope at 2800 m (9 km NE Lake Habbema). Possibly endemic to the Snow Mtns; all the past collecting activity in the mountains of Papua New Guinea have not discovered the species living there.

Conservation: IUCN – Endangered.

Discussion: Still represented only by six specimens collected in 1938. Three of these form the type series, one of the other three had been misidentified as " Pogonomys sylvestris " and two were misidentified as " Pogonomelomys ruemmleri ". Originally described as a species of Melomys (Tate, 1951), but Musser and Carleton (1993) placed albidens in Coccymys because so many of its traits are unlike those defining species within Melomys and some characteristics are more similar to those defining reummleri. This conclusion was reached independently by Flannery (1990 b) and Menzies (1990), although neither of them formally allocated albidens and ruemmleri to the same genus. Further study has revealed that albidens and ruemmleri seem to form a monophyletic group, as defined by morphology, but are separated by a suite of external, cranial, and dental traits (Musser and Lunde, in ms.).