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SPECIES Niviventer coninga

Author:Swinhoe, 1864.
Citation:Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1864: 185.
Common Name:Spiny Taiwan Niviventer
Type Locality:Taiwan.
Distribution:Endemic to Taiwan, below about 2000 m and common at 1300 m (H.-T. Yu, 1993, 1994; M.-J. Yu, 1996).
Status:IUCN – Lower Risk (nt) as N. coxinga.
Comments:Corbet and Hill (1992:364) explained why coninga instead of coxingi is the correct name for this species. Musser (1981b) included a population from NE Burma, but that is a separate undescribed species; current morphometric analyses indicates N. coninga is not closely related to any species of Niviventer on the mainland (Musser and Lunde, ms), but analysis of mtDNA cytochrome b sequences ties N. coninga to N. tenaster within a clade also containing N. confucianus and N. culturatus (J. L. Patton, in litt., 2000). Chromosomal data documented by H.-T. Yu et al. (1996) and contrasted with karyotype of Taiwanese N. culturatus, which indicates that N. coninga and and Taiwanese N. culturatus are not sister-species but represent independent invasions of Taiwan from the Asian mainland, a pattern also supported by allozymic data (H.-T. Yu, 1995). Ecology, altitudinal distribution, and genetic population structure documented by H.-T. Yu (1993, 1994, 1995) and Adler (1995, 1996).
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Offspring:

Synonyms:

    coxinga (Swinhoe, 1871)
    coxingi (Thomas, 1892)

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