Mus (Mus) cervicolor Hodgson 1845

Mus (Mus) cervicolor Hodgson 1845, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 1, 15: 268.

Type Locality: Nepal.

Vernacular Names: Fawn-colored Mouse.

Synonyms: Mus (Mus) annamensis (Robinson and Kloss 1922); Mus (Mus) cunicularis Blyth 1855; Mus (Mus) imphalensis (Roonwal 1948); Mus (Mus) nitidulus Blyth 1859; Mus (Mus) popaeus (Thomas 1919); Mus (Mus) strophiatus Hodgson 1845 .

Distribution: Indigenous range from N India (Jammu, Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim, West Bengal, Meghalaya, and Manipur; Agrawal, 2000) and Nepal east through Burma, Thailand (J. T. Marshall, Jr., 1977 a; Robinson et al., 1995), Laos (Aplin et al., 2003 c; Smith et al., In Press), Cambodia, Vietnam (Dang et al., 1994), and S China (Yunnan; Wang, 2003, and Zhang et al., 1997); see overall distribution in J. T. Marshall, Jr. (1977 a). Also recorded from Sumatra and Java where it has likely been inadvertently introduced (Musser and Newcomb, 1983). Mandal and Ghosh (1984) reported a specimen from South Andaman Isl in the Andaman Isls; whether representative of natural range or anthropogenic introduction is unknown ("most likely introduced," J. T. Marshall, Jr., in litt., 2004). Roberts (1977, 1997) reported the species from C and S Pakistan but that identification requires verification.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Subgenus Mus . Closely related to Mus caroli in morphology (Macholán, 2001); a member of a clade containing M. cookii and M. caroli as assessed by sequences from several different genes (Graur, 1994; Lundrigan et al., 2002), and combined analyses of morphological traits, DNA/DNA hybridization, and mitochondrial 12S rRNA sequences (Chevret et al., 2003). J. T. Marshall, Jr. (1977 b) recognized two subspecies in Thailand, the large-bodied T. c. popaeus found in forests, and the smaller-bodied T. c. cervicolor inhabiting ricefields, with some intermediates in forest near Tak,NW Thailand. Macholán’s (2001) multivariate analysis of morphometric traits could not distinguish samples of the two kinds, and he noted their respective ranges formed a mosaic defined by habitat discontinuities; the two subspecies are also indistinguishable by molecular markers (Auffray et al., 2003). Reviewed by Corbet and Hill (1992). Mus cervicolor has resided in Thailand since middle Pleistocene, judged from isolated molars recovered from cave deposits (Chaimanee, 1998).