Rattus praetor (Thomas, 1888) . Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., [ser. 1], 2:158.

TYPE LOCALITY: Solomon Isis, Guadalcanal Isl, Aola .

DISTRIBUTION: New Guinea; on the mainland found from Vogelkop throughout both sides of Central Cordillera in Irian Jaya and lowlands of N New Guinea to about the Sepik-Ramu drainage. Also occurs on Admiralty and Solomon Isis and in the Bismarck Arch, on Umboi, New Britain, and New Ireland (Flannery and White, 1991; Taylor et al., 1982).

SYNONYMS: bandiculus, coenorum, mediocris, purdiensis, sansapor, tramitius, utakwa.

COMMENTS: In Tate's (1951) monograph, this species was listed as a subspecies of R. ruber; the holotype of ruber is an example of the introduced R. nitidus (Taylor et al., 1983, summarized the taxonomic history).