Vandeleuria nilagirica Jerdon 1867

Vandeleuria nilagirica Jerdon 1867, Mammals of India: 203.

Type Locality: SW India, E Tamil Nadu, Nilgiri Hills, Ootacamund.

Vernacular Names: Nilgiri Vandeleuria.

Distribution: Recorded only from S end of the Western Ghats (= Sahyadris) in the Nilgiri Hills of SW Peninsular India (Corbet and Hill, 1992), but may occur farther north along the Western Ghats wherever tropical evergreen rain forest has not been eliminated.

Discussion: Originally described as a species by Jerdon (1867:203), who wrote of having "on several occasions found this tree-mouse in woods on the summit of the Neelgherries, near Ootacamund." Jerdon was also familiar with oleracea, noting on the previous page that "This very pretty little mouse has been found in all parts of India, from the Himalayas to the extreme south." Subsequently retained as a species by Ellerman (1941), thereafter usually included in V. oleracea (Agrawal, 2000; Agrawal and Chakraborty, 1980; Ellerman, 1961; Musser and Carleton, 1993), but separated as a separate species by Corbet and Hill (1992) on the basis of the type description (no holotype exists) and a specimen from Kutta, S Coorg in the Nilgiri Hills (much longer tail than any sample of V. oleracea and whitish gray rather than pure white underparts). A typical V. oleracea was also collected at Kutta. See Corbet and Hill (1992) for expanded discussion and comparisons. The murines Mus famulus, Vandeleuria nilagirica and Rattus satarae join the lion-tailed macaque ( Macaca silenus) in being endemic to tropical rainforests along the Western Ghats.