HOME --> CLASS MAMMALIA
--> ORDER RODENTIA
--> SUBORDER MYOMORPHA
--> SUPERFAMILY Muroidea
--> FAMILY Muridae
--> SUBFAMILY Murinae
--> GENUS Niviventer
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). |
|
| Offspring: | Synonyms:
coxinga (Swinhoe, 1871) coxingi (Thomas, 1892)
|
|
|