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HOME --> CLASS MAMMALIA
--> ORDER RODENTIA
--> SUBORDER MYOMORPHA
--> SUPERFAMILY Muroidea
--> FAMILY Muridae
--> SUBFAMILY Murinae
--> GENUS Rattus
SPECIES Rattus timorensis
| Author: | Kitchener, Aplin, and Boeadi, 1991. | | Citation: | Rec. West. Aust. Mus., 15: 446. | | Common Name: | Timor Forest Rat | | Type Locality: | Indonesia, Nusa Tenggara, Timor, Gunung Mutis, 1900 m, 7 km E Desa Nenas. | | Distribution: | Known only from the type locality. | | Status: | IUCN – Data Deficient. | | Comments: | Rattus species-group unresolved. Represented only by the holotype. Some of the large series of subfossil fragments collected in E Timor by Glover (1986) may be this species. Phylogenetic affinities unknown and possibly not even a member of Rattus (Kitchener et al., 1991b). Albumin immunological analysis suggests a close phyletic affinity with Bunomys chrysocomus from Sulawesi and Komodomys rintjanus from Nusa Tenggara (Watts and Baverstock, 1994b); the close alliance between rintjanus and timorensis, and their great phylogenetic distance from Rattus, is supported by a recent unpublished allozyme electrophoresis study (K. Aplin, in litt., 2004). Recently, K. Helgen (in litt., 2003) collected an extant specimen from a forest fragment on Timor that is not R. timorensis, but an undescribed species that is also represented by large series in Glover’s subfossil collections. |
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