Graphiurus (Graphiurus) kelleni Reuvens 1890

Graphiurus (Graphiurus) kelleni Reuvens 1890, Notes Leyden Mus., 13: 74.

Type Locality: Angola: Mossamedes district, "Damara-land" (see Hill and Carter, 1941) .

Vernacular Names: Kellen's African Dormouse.

Synonyms: Graphiurus (Graphiurus) ansorgei Dollman 1912; Graphiurus (Graphiurus) brockmani Dollman 1910; Graphiurus (Graphiurus) cuanzensis (Hill and Carter 1937); Graphiurus (Graphiurus) dollmani Osgood 1910; Graphiurus (Graphiurus) foxi Dollman 1914; Graphiurus (Graphiurus) internus Dollman 1912; Graphiurus (Graphiurus) nanus (De Winton 1896); Graphiurus (Graphiurus) olga (Thomas 1925); Graphiurus (Graphiurus) parvus (True 1893); Graphiurus (Graphiurus) personatus Heller 1911; Graphiurus (Graphiurus) tasmani (Roberts 1929) .

Distribution: Savannahs of SubSaharan Africa, excluding Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa, but including: Senegal (Hubert et al., 1973, as G. murinus), The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin,? Burkina Faso (Gautun et al., 1985, as G. murinus), Nigeria, Mali, Niger (Dobigny et al., 2002 b), Sudan, N Dem. Rep. Congo (Verschuren, 1987 –Parc National de la Garamba, as G. lorraineus), N Uganda (Heller, 1911, as G. personatus; Hollister, 1919, as G. personatus), Kenya (Hollister, 1919), Ethiopia (Yalden et al., 1996), Somalia, Tanzania (Stanley et al., 2002; Swynnerton and Hayman, 1951), Malawi (Ansell and Dowsett, 1988), Mozambique, Angola (Hayman, 1963 b; Hill and Carter, 1941), Zambia (Ansell, 1978, as G. johnstoni) and Zimbabwe. In W Africa see Grubb et al. (1998) and Rosevear (1969).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc) as G. kelleni, G. olga, and G. parvus .

Discussion: Subgenus Graphiurus . Schlitter et al. (1985) discussed taxonomic problems associated with the small dormice occurring in savannah woodlands of West, East, and Southern Africa. Holden (1993) provisionally recognized three species: G. kelleni, G. olga and G. parvus . My recent comparisons of museum specimens, including holotypes of all the synonyms listed, and results of preliminary multivariate analyses indicate that only one species of small-bodied African savannah dormouse can be diagnosed solely on the basis of cranial morphology: Analyses showed that olga is morphologically indistinguishable from West and East African parvus, and Angolan and Zambian kelleni cannot be discriminated on the basis of morphometric characters from samples of populations that include parvus and olga .

Gautun et al. (1985) reported G. murinus from the vicinity of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, but based on the distributions and habitat preferences of G. murinus, G. microtis and G. kelleni, the specimen likely represents G. kelleni . Description and comparison of the vocal repertoire of G. kelleni was reported by Hutterer and Peters (2001). Karyotype of Niger sample with 2n = 70 (Dobigny et al., 2002 b; reported as parvus). Reviewed by Rossolimo et al. (2001) and Holden (In Press).