Poiana richardsoni (Thomson, 1842) . Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 10, 1:204.

TYPE LOCALITY: Equatorial Guinea, Bioko (" Fernando Po ") .

DISTRIBUTION: Sierra Leone; Liberia; Ivory Coast; Bioko; Cameroun; Gabon; Congo Republic; Zaire.

COMMENT: Includes liberiensis (replaces leightoni, a lapsus); see Coetzee, 1977, Part 8: 18. Rosevear, 1974:227, raised leightoni to the species level based on white versus offwhite ventral coloration and presence of more or less continuous dark spinal line despite his comment earlier in the same work, on the unreliability of such characters (p. 186- 188). He also supported the distinction with a recent record and a distributional gap with other known forms. Poiana records are few and scattered; recent studies of Poiana placed leightoni as a subspecies; see de Beaufort, 1965, Mammalia, 29:275-280; Michaelis, 1972, Saugetierk. Mitt., 20:1 -110; Kingdon, 1977:159. No skulls of leightoni are known (WCW).

ISIS NUMBER: 5301412005003001001.