Pelomys Peters 1852

Pelomys Peters 1852, Bericht Verhandl. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 17: 275.

Type Species: Mus (Pelomys) fallax Peters 1852

Synonyms: Komemys De Beaux 1924 .

Species and subspecies: 5 species:

Species Pelomys campanae Huet 1888

Species Pelomys fallax Peters 1852

Species Pelomys hopkinsi Hayman 1955

Species Pelomys isseli de Beaux 1924

Species Pelomys minor Cabrera and Ruxton 1926

Discussion: Arvicanthis Division. Definition and phylogenetic position of Pelomys need to be reassessed in context of a systematic revision of arvicanthine murines. In overall morphology, the genus is most closely related to Mylomys and Desmomys, which in turn are members of a group also containing species of Arvicanthis, Lemniscomys, and Rhabdomys (Musser, 1987 b), an alliance corroborated by mtDNA sequences of cytochrome b and 12S and 16S rRNA gene fragments (Ducroz et al., 2001). The latter study indicated Pelomys to be most closely related to Mylomys (Ducroz et al., 2001) and some authors regard them as congeneric (e. g., Heim de Balsac and Bellier, 1967). Analysis of microcomplement fixation of albumin groups Pelomys with Lemniscomys, Rhabdomys, Grammomys, and Thallomys (Watts and Baverstock, 1995 a) . Komemys is usually treated as a subgenus for P. hopkinsi and P. isseli (e.g., Delany, 1975), but we recognize it here as a synonym of Pelomys . Pelomys is represented by Pliocene and Pleistocene fossils from East Africa (Jaeger, 1976; Jaeger and Wesselman, 1976; Wesselman, 1984), South Africa (de Graaff, 1961), Algeria (de Bruijn et al., 1970; Jaeger, 1975), and outside of Africa on Mediterranean Rhodes Isl (de Bruijn et al., 1970, 1996); see review by Denys (1999). The early Pliocene record of Pelomys from Afghanistan (Sen et al., 1979) is an example of the extinct Parapelomys (Brandy et al., 1980) .