Uromys (Uromys) caudimaculatus Krefft 1867

Uromys (Uromys) caudimaculatus Krefft 1867, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1867: 316.

Type Locality: Australia, Queensland, Cape York (see Mahoney and Richardson, 1988).

Vernacular Names: Giant White-tailed Uromys.

Synonyms: Uromys (Uromys) aruensis Gray 1873; Uromys (Uromys) ductor Thomas 1913; Uromys (Uromys) exilis Troughton and Le Soeuf 1929; Uromys (Uromys) lamington Troughton 1937; Uromys (Uromys) multiplicatus (Jentink 1907); Uromys (Uromys) nero Thomas 1913; Uromys (Uromys) papuanus (Ramsay 1883); Uromys (Uromys) prolixus Thomas 1913; Uromys (Uromys) scaphax Thomas 1913; Uromys (Uromys) sherrini Thomas 1923; Uromys (Uromys) validus Peters and Doria 1881; Uromys (Uromys) waigeuensis Frechkop 1932 .

Distribution: Australia: NE coastal Queensland in tropical forests from Townsville area north to tip of Cape York, and a few islands off the coast of N Queensland (Moore, 1995:640; Watts and Aslin, 1981:91). New Guinea: widespread throughout lowland and midmontane regions on the mainland, sea level to 1925 m; also on Aru Isls, Kai Isls, Waigeo Isl, Yapen Isl, and Normanby and Fergusson in the D’Entrecasteaux Arch. (Flannery, 1995 a, b; Leary and Seri, 1997).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Subgenus Uromys . The Australian population has been studied from viewpoints of chromosomal morphology (Baverstock et al., 1977 c), heterochromatin variation (Baverstock et al., 1976 b, 1982), electrophoretic data (Baverstock et al., 1981), G-banding homologies (Baverstock et al., 1983 b), morphology of male reproductive tract (Breed, 1986), and spermatozoal structure (Breed, 1984; Breed and Sarafis, 1978). Donnellan (1987) provided chromosomal information for samples from New Guinea, Breed and Aplin (1994) reported spermatozoal morphology, and Lidicker (1968) described phallic anatomy. Morphology of gastrointestinal tract and its significance covered by Comport and Hume (1998). Mahoney and Richardson (1988:189) cataloged taxonomic, distributional, and biological references covering Australian populations. Two different chromosomal forms of Australian U. caudimaculatus exist, one extending from McIlwraith Ranges northward, the other from Cooktown southward; they are separated by a 200 km break in rainforest (Baverstock et al., 1976 b, 1977 c; Donnellan, 1989). Significance of morphological variation among samples from mainland New Guinea assessed in the context of a systematic revision of Uromys (Groves and Flannery, 1994), but their results should be tested by new analyses. The taxa nero and scaphax, for example, which were treated as synonyms of U. caudimaculatus multiplicatus by Groves and Flannery (1994:153), are in K. Helgen’s (in litt., 2004; he has recently studied holotypes and other specimens at the BMNH) "... assessment extremely distinctive and represent biological species not immediately allied to caudimaculatus ...." Australian populations reviewed by Moore (1995), New Guinea by Flannery (1995 a, b). Aplin et al. (1998) reported material of this species from a late Pleistocene archaeological site on the Ayamaru Plateau, central Bird’s Head Peninsula of Prov. of Papua (= Irian Jaya).