Pseudomys albocinereus Gould 1845

Pseudomys albocinereus Gould 1845, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1845: 78.

Type Locality: Australia, Western Australia, "scrubby plains near Perth" (as restricted by Thomas’ lectotype designation; see Mahoney and Richardson, 1988:171).

Vernacular Names: Ash-gray Pseudomys.

Synonyms: Pseudomys squalorum (Thomas 1907) .

Distribution: Australia, SW Western Australia (from Shark Bay area southeast to Israelite Bay); also found on islands of Bernier, Dorre, Shark Bay, and Woody (Watts and Aslin, 1981:196, and Morris, 1995:584).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Analysis of phallic morphology suggested P. albocinereus belongs in group with P. fumeus and P. shortridgei (Lidicker and Brylski, 1987), but electrophoretic data placed it in a cluster containing P. apodemoides and seven other species, excluding P. fumeus and P. shortridgei (Baverstock et al., 1981) . Dental traits suggested P. albocinereus is closely related to the Pliocene P. vandycki, and if this resemblance reflects monophyly, the two species form a distinct group within Pseudomys (Godthelp, 1990) . But Watts (in litt.) wrote us that "virtually all data supports close relationships between P. apodemoides and P. albocinereus . Relationships beyond this are any one’s guess." See also Watts et al. (1992).