Lophuromys (Lophuromys) zena Dollman 1909

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 1189-1531 : 1209

Lophuromys (Lophuromys) zena Dollman 1909

Lophuromys (Lophuromys) zena Dollman 1909 , Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 8, 4: 550.

Type Locality: East Africa, S Kenya, near Nyeri, east side of Aberdare Range, 9581 ft (2920 m; coordinates given by W. Verheyen et al., 2002).

Vernacular Names: Zena's Brush-furred Rat.

Distribution: Recorded only from montane habitats in the Aberdare Range and on Mt Kenya in S Kenya (W. Verheyen et al., 2002).

Discussion: Subgenus Lophuromys , L. aquilus species group (W. Verheyen et al., 2002). Originally described as a species, later treated as a subspecies of L. aquilus (G. M. Allen, 1939; Ellerman, 1941), and finally included in synonymy of L. flavopunctatus ( Misonne, 1974; Musser and Carleton, 1993). Recent analyses of morphometric data and mtDNA cytochrome b sequences distinguish the montane Aberdare Range and Mt Kenya samples as a separate and distinct species from all the other samples formerly included in either L. aquilus or L. flavopunctatus , and identifies samples from lower slopes of those mountains as L. aquilus (W. Verheyen et al., 2002) . Morphometric analyses place L. zena in a clade with Ethiopian L. chrysopus and L. brunneus separate from the clade containing geographic samples of L. aquilus (W. Verheyen et al., 2002) . Holotypes of L eisentrauti , L. dieterleni, Mt Elgon L. rubecula , and L. zena cluster with samples of L. chrysopus , suggesting all represent the same species, a possibility requiring testing by analyses of morphometric, chromosomal, and molecular variation in geographic samples from the region between Ethiopia and the Cameroon and Kenyan highlands (W. Verheyen et al., 2002).