Fukomys species

Šumbera, R., Uhrová, M., Begall, S., Caspar, K. R., Jerkovičová, D., Daele, P. Van, Chitaukali, W. N., Faulkes, C. G., Bennett, N. C., Johannes, C., Burda, H. & Mikula, O., 2023, The biology of an isolated Mashona mole-rat population from southern Malawi, with implications for the diversity and biogeography of the genus Fukomys, Organisms Diversity & Evolution (New York, N. Y.) 23 (3), pp. 603-620 : 614

How many Fukomys species inhabit Malawi?

Although it was originally suggested that common mole-rats in Malawi belong to a single species, which was referred to as Cryptomys hottentotus ( Ansell & Dowsett, 1988) , it becomes clear that the country is home to at least four well-defined lineages of Fukomys , most likely distinct species (Figs. 1, 4, and 5). The northern parts of Malawi are occupied by F. whytei , whereas in the southernmost regions of Malawi, F. darlingi is present. Two other lineages provisionally named “Ndawambe” and “Viphya” occur in the central part of the country. Whereas mole-rats from Viphya seem to be related to F. whytei in both the CYTB and nuclear dataset, the position of those from Ndawambe is not clear (Figs. 4 and 5). Mole-rats from Mzuzu in northern Malawi (see Faulkes et al., 2010) seem to be almost identical to the animals from Viphya according to our unpublished CYTB data. For sure, these relatively isolated lineages deserve further study. Ansell and Dowsett (1988) proposed that F. mechowii ( Peters, 1881) , the giant mole-rat, which is abundant in northern Zambia, also occurs in northern Malawi. However, the single specimen that this assumption was based on exhibited a head spot, which is typically absent in this species ( Caspar et al., 2021b). No further records of F. mechowii from Malawi have been noted since then, and it appears that the species’ eastern range is limited by the Zambian Muchinga Escarpment and the Luangwa River system (see Caspar et al., 2021b). Thus, its range should not extend into Malawi. In case F. mechowii is indeed absent from Malawi and the mole-rat populations from Ndawambe and Viphya are recognised as species in future analyses, the bathyergid fauna of the country will consist of five species: four social Fukomys and the solitary silvery mole-rat Heliophobius argenteocinereus .