Hybomys (Hybomys) univittatus (Peters 1876)

[Hybomys (Hybomys)] univittatus (Peters 1876), Monatsb. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin: 479.

Type Locality: Gabon, Dongila.

Vernacular Names: Peters's Hybomys.

Synonyms: Hybomys (Hybomys) rufocanus (Tullberg 1893) .

Distribution: From SE Nigeria (on E side of Cross River), through Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo, S Central African Republic, Dem. Rep. Congo, and extreme NW Zambia to S Uganda and W Rwanda (Carleton and Robbins, 1985:990).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Subgenus Hybomys . Review of species and comparisons with H. trivirgatus and H. planifrons reported by Carleton and Robbins (1985). The degree of morphological variation seen among populations of H. univittatus suggests that it is a composite of morphologically similar species. One problem has been inadvertently identified by Van der Straeten et al. (1986), who separated lunaris from H. univittatus . Their morphometric analysis, and similar results reproduced in other reports (Van der Straeten, 1985; Van der Straeten and Hutterer, 1986), clearly distinguish specimens from S Cameroon identified as H. univitattus from samples obtained in E Dem. Rep. Congo and Rwanda, which they identified as H. lunaris . Real lunaris, however, is a species of small body size and more delicate build, to date known only from the Ruwenzori highlands (see that account). The " lunaris " of Van der Straeten and colleagues is a different species from H. univitattus, which appears to inhabit the Central African Forest Block (Carleton and Robbins, 1985), but there is no available scientific name that can be attached to it. To adequately define this eastern species will require a fresh systematic inquiry into qualitative and quantitative relationships among samples of the H. univittatus complex (see comments under H. badius and H. lunaris). Habitat and locality in Kalinzu Forest of SW Uganda recorded by Lunde and Sarmiento (2002).