Praomys daltoni (Thomas 1892)

[Praomys] daltoni (Thomas 1892), Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 6, 10: 181.

Type Locality: West Africa, Senegal, Niokolo Koba National Park (see discussion in Grubb et al., 1998:197).

Vernacular Names: Dalton's Praomys.

Synonyms: Praomys butleri (Wroughton 1907); Praomys ingoldbyi (Ellerman 1941); Praomys saturatus (Ingoldby 1929); Praomys tuareg (Braestrup 1935) .

Distribution: Sudanian and Sahelian zones (see Dobigny et al. 2002 b:500) from Gambia and Senegal through Guinea (Ziegler et al., 2002), Sierra Leone, N Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, S Chad and Central African Republic to SW Sudan; E limits unresolved.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc) as Myomys daltoni .

Discussion: Reviewed by Rosevear (1969) and Van der Straeten and Verheyen (1978 b). Although its geographic range allopatrically complements the distribution of Myomyscus brockmani, P. daltoni is not conspecific with that E African species, a conclusion based on our study of specimens and analyses of morphological (Lecompte et al., 2001 a) and molecular (Lecompte et al., 2002 b) data. DNA/DNA hybridization results clustered daltoni with species of Praomys (Chevret et al., 1994) as did phylogenetic analyses of morphometric traits (Van der Straeten, 1979), complete mtDNA cytochrome b sequences (Lecompte et al., 2002 b), and nuclear IRBP gene data (E. Lecompte, in litt., 2002); however, partial 16S rRNA mitochondrial sequences pointed to daltoni as sister group to species of Stenocephalemys . Van der Straeten (in litt., 1994) regarded derooi and daltoni to be closely related to Praomys tullbergi . Chromosomal morphology documented for samples from Côte d’Ivoire (Matthey, 1964), Senegal (Granjon et al., 1992), and NE Mali (Dobigny et al., 2001 a, b; Volobouev et al., 2002 b); 2n = 36, FNa = 34 for all samples. The taxon tuareg was described as a subspecies of Grammomys macmillani, but listed by Rosevear (1969) as a species of Grammomys of doubtful validity, and finally identified by Braestrup and Hutterer (1985) as a possibly distinct subspecies of P. daltoni . Setzer (1956) retained butleri, known only by the holotype collected in SW Sudan, as a species, but its morphological traits, judged by his description, are those of P. daltoni . Van der Straeten and Verheyen (1978) documented the identity of ingoldbyi with P. daltoni . Grubb et al. (1998) reviewed populations in Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Ghana. Senegal samples documented by Duplantier and Granjon (1992) and Granjon et al. (1992). Niger records documented by Dobigny et al. (2002 b). Trapped and recovered from owl pellets in S Mali (Meinig, 2000). Two specimens taken in NE Mali inside the city of Kidal and on the Adrar des Iforas massif are the northernmost records of the species, and Dobigny et al. (2001 a:216) speculated that P. daltoni is usually found in Sudano-Sahelian habitats and its occurrence in the Adrar des Iforas "supports the hypothesis that this massif shelters a relictual fauna, isolated since the recent southward progression of the Sahara desert" and noted that "the survival of this species in this area is favoured by its commensalism." L Granjon (in litt., 2002) confirmed that P. daltoni is widely distributed in Mali, "outdoors in the South, indoors in the North.".