Niviventer cameroni (Chasen 1940)

[Niviventer] cameroni (Chasen 1940), Bull. Raffles Mus ., 15: 176.

Type Locality: Malay Peninsula, Pahang, Cameron Highlands, 5000 ft (1524 m).

Vernacular Names: Cameron Highlands Niviventer.

Distribution: Recorded only from mountain forest in the Cameron Highlands, 5000-6600 ft (1524-2012 m; specimens in BMNH, RMBR, and USNM).

Discussion: Originally described as a subspecies of Rattus rapit (= Niviventer rapit) but differs from N. rapit in being much larger in all cranial and dental dimensions, especially the longer molar row, and lacking a conspicuously tufted tail. Whether N. cameroni is phylogenetically more closely related to N. rapit than to other species on the Sunda Shelf and in the Indochinese region needs to be determined using other morphological suites and gene sequences. Niviventer cameroni joins Maxomys inas and Pithecheir parvus as the three endemic murines occurring on the Malay Peninsula south of the Isthmus of Kra.