Niviventer fulvescens (Gray, 1847) . Cat. Hodgson Coll. Br. Mus., p. 18.

TYPE LOCALITY: Nepal .

DISTRIBUTION: From S Himalayas (Nepal and N India) through Bangladesh, S China (incl. Hainan Isl), and Indochina (incl. Con Son Isl off Vietnam) to Peninsular Thailand, Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and Bali.

SYNONYMS: baturus, besuki, blythi, bukit, caudatior, cinnamomeus, condorensis, flavipilis, gracilis, huang, jacobsoni, jerdoni, lepidus, lepturoides, lieftincki, ling, lotipes, marinus, mekongis, mentosus, minor, octomammis, orbus, pan, temmincki, treubii, vulpicolor, wongi .

COMMENTS: Some authors have referred to populations on the Sunda Shelf and S Indochina as bukit, and those occurring farther north as fulvescens (Chasen, 1940; J. T. Marshall, Jr., 1977«; Musser, 1981 b), pending a taxonomic revision of the group. Recent study now supports the hypothesis that samples of bukit represent N. fulvescens (Abe, 1983), an arrangement reflecting the earlier view of Osgood (1932:305): "The relationship of fulvescens to southern forms is obvious in several instances, especially in that of R. f. bukit which can at most be no more than a subspecies." This hypothesis will require testing by carful systematic revision of the fulvescens-bukit complex.

Niviventer fulvescens is the only member of the genus with a geographic distribution encompassing SE Asian mainland and some islands of the Sunda Shelf; other murines with roughly equivalent ranges are Berylmys bowersii, Chiropodomys gliroides, Leopoldamys sabanus, L. edwardsi, and Maxomys surifer (Musser and Newcomb, 1983). Spermatozoal morphology of Malayan bukit described by Breed and Yong (1986) in comparative context.