Published December 31, 2005 | Version v1
Taxonomic treatment Open

Rattus sordidus Gould 1857

Description

Rattus sordidus Gould 1857

Rattus sordidus Gould 1857, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1857: 242.

Type Locality: Australia, Queensland, open plains Darling Downs (as restricted by Thomas’ lectotype designation; see Mahoney and Richardson, 1988:187).

Vernacular Names: Canefield Rat.

Synonyms: Rattus aramia Troughton 1937; Rattus brachyrhinus Tate and Archbold 1935; Rattus bunae Troughton 1946; Rattus conatus Thomas 1923; Rattus gestri (Thomas 1897); Rattus youngi Thomas 1926.

Distribution: Australia: E coast from tip of Cape York to NE New South Wales, and some off-shore islands (see Watts and Aslin, 1981:239, and Redhead, 1995 b:662). New Guinea: lowlands south of Central Cordillera from Dobodura in E Papua New Guinea west and north to Koembe in Prov. of Papua (= Irian Jaya); sea level to 670 m (see Taylor et al., 1983:265, and Flannery, 1995 a:335); also on Yule Isl, off the coast of SE Papua (Flannery, 1995 b).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (nt).

Discussion: Rattus fuscipes species group. One of the two species of native Rattus in the New Guinea-Australian region that occurs on both land masses. On morphological evidence, Taylor and Horner (1973) arranged villosissimus and colletti as subspecies of R. sordidus. Later evaluations, however, using chromosomal, biochemical, and hybridization data, suggested the three should be viewed as separate species in the same monophyletic cluster (Baverstock et al., 1977 d, 1983 a, 1986), which is the way they are treated in current faunal accounts and catalogs (Mahoney and Richardson, 1988; Redhead, 1995 b; Watts and Aslin, 1981).

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 1488, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7316535

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Linked records

Additional details

Biodiversity

Scientific name authorship
Gould
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Order
Rodentia
Family
Muridae
Genus
Rattus
Species
sordidus
Taxon rank
species
Taxonomic concept label
Rattus sordidus Gould, 1857 sec. Wilson & Reeder, 2005

References

  • Mahoney, J. A., and B. J. Richardson. 1988. Muridae. Pp. 154 - 192, in Zoological catalogue of Australia. Mammalia (J. L. Bannister, et. al.). Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 5: 1 - 274.
  • Troughton, E. Le G. 1937. Descriptions of some New Guinea mammals. Records of the Australian Museum, 20: 117 - 127.
  • Tate, G. H. H., and R. Archbold. 1935. Results of the Archbold Expeditions. No. 3. Twelve apparently new forms of Muridae other than Rattus from the Indo-Australian region. American Museum Novitates, 803: 1 - 9.
  • Watts, C. H. S., and H. J. Aslin. 1981. The rodents of Australia. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 321 pp.
  • Redhead, T. D. 1995 b. Canefield rat, Rattus sordidus. Pp. 661 - 662, in Mammals of Australia (R. Strahan, ed.). Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C., 756 pp.
  • Taylor, J. M., J. H. Calaby, and S. C. Smith. 1983. Native Rattus, land bridges, and the Australian region. Journal of Mammalogy, 64: 463 - 475.
  • Taylor, J. M., and B. E. Horner. 1973. Results of the Archbold Expeditions. No. 98. Systematics of native Australian Rattus (Rodentia, Muridae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 150: 1 - 130.
  • Baverstock, P. R., C. H. S. Watts, J. T. Hogarth, A. C. Robinson, and J. F. Robinson. 1977 d. Chromosome evolution in Australian rodents. II. The Rattus group. Chromosoma, 61: 227 - 241.
  • Baverstock, P. R., M. Gelder, and A. Jahnke. 1983 a. Chromosome evolution in Australian Rattus- - G-banding and hybrid meiosis. Genetica, 60: 93 - 103.