Brassomys, Voss & Meng & Prendini & Voss & Whiteley & Knight & Lunde & And & Melomys & Bulletin, 2009

Voss, Musser Scientific Publications Of The American Museum Of Natural History American Museum Novitates Bulletin Of The American Museum Of Natural History Anthropological Papers Of The American Museum Of Natural History Publications Committee Robert S., Meng, Chair Board Of Editors Jin, Prendini, Paleontology Lorenzo, Voss, Invertebrate Zoology Robert S., Whiteley, Vertebrate Zoology Peter M., Knight, Anthropology Managing Editor Mary, Lunde, And, New Guinea Coccymys, Melomys & Bulletin, Albidens Amnh, 2009, Systematic Reviews Of New Guinea Coccymys And ‘‘ Melomys’ ’ Albidens (Muridae, Murinae) With Descriptions Of New Taxa, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2009 (329), pp. 1-139 : 1-139

Brassomys , new genus

TYPE SPECIES: Melomys albidens Tate (1951: 286) .

DIAGNOSIS: A genus of subfamily Murinae , family Muridae (as delimited by Carleton and Musser, 1984, and Musser and Carleton, 2005) that is distinguished from all other described murine genera by the following combination of morphological traits: (1) fur covering upperparts of head and body thick and woolly, burnished dark brown, ventral coat soft and thick, entirely whitish gray to ochraceous gray; (2) moderately long muzzle, brownish black mask around eyes, very long mystacial vibrissae; (3) tail slender and longer than head and body (LT/LHB ranges from 121% to 146%), scales small and slightly swollen, the rings of scales abutting against one another, three hairs associated with each scale, dorsal surface near tail tip covered with scales and hairs (no hairless, scaleless, calloused dorsal strip), entire tail brownish gray, one specimen with a short white tip; (4) dorsal surfaces of front and hind feet pale brown, hallux with claw, hind foot short and wide with full complement of plantar tubercles; (5) rostrum moderately long, wide, and rectangular in side view; (6) interorbital and postorbital dorsolateral margins smooth, interorbit hourglass-shaped in dorsal view, zygomatic arches delicate and parallel, only slightly set beyond sides of skull, braincase smooth and globular, interparietal wide and long, occiput deep; (7) zygomatic plate very narrow, its anterior margin straight and not projecting beyond dorsal maxillary root of zygomatic arch, its posterior edge even with anterior third of first molar, stout knoblike masseteric tubercle projecting ventrolaterally from base of ventral zygomatic root; (8) squamosal intact except for large subsquamosal foramen; (9) wide bony alisphenoid struts; (10) wide and moderately long incisive foramina, their posterior margins well anterior to front faces of first molars; (11) molar rows parallel, bony palate short with its posterior margin even with front or middle of third molars, palatal surface smooth with shallow palatine grooves, posterior palatine foramina level with anterior third of second molar; (12) wide mesopterygoid fossa with spacious sphenopalatine vacuities; (13) wide pterygoid plate with deep pterygoid fossa, sphenopterygoid openings in some specimens; (14) large and somewhat inflated ectotympanic bulla (relative to skull size), covering much of periotic but not touching basioccipital, dorsal wall of carotid canal formed by periotic and adjacent basioccipital; (15) large stapedial foramen, no sphenofrontal foramen or squamosal-alisphenoid groove, indicating a carotid arterial pattern widespread within Murinae (character state 2 of Carleton, 1980; pattern 2 described by Voss, 1988); (16) dentary with tubular and gently curving ramus between incisor and molar row, low and elongate ascending ramus with delicate coronoid process and elongate condyloid process, labial surface smooth without external indication of incisor capsule, that capsule terminating within the dentary at middle of base of coronoid process or just before; (17) upper incisor enamel white or cream, lowers with white enamel, uppers project directly down from rostrum (at a right angle) and are short and narrow (anterior-posterior plane) relative to skull size, enamel covers at least half of each labial surface, lowers thin with similar extent of enamel cover over labial surface; (18) each first and second upper molar (maxillary) with four roots (anterior, lingual, and two posterior) but the third with three roots, each lower (mandibular) with two; (19) molars brachydont, cusps rows tightly abutting one another, forming uncomplicated chevron-shaped occlusal patterns, third molar small relative to others in toothrow; (20) first and second upper molars with cusp rows fused at lingual margins, cusp t7 absent, enamel ridge connecting labial cusps t6 and t9, and with posterior cingulum; (21) anteroconid small relative to size of molar, formed by complete fusion of anterolingual and anterolabial cusps, anterolabial cusp completely coalesced with anterior lamina on second lower molar and absent from third molar, no anterior or posterior labial cusplets on any molar, posterior cingulum large and oblong.

ETYMOLOGY: ‘‘Leonard J. Brass, internationally known botanist and explorer and the world’s foremost authority on the flora of New Guinea, has retired from his post as Associate Curator of the Archbold Collections at the American Museum of Natural History and leaves New York on Monday, April 18, [1966] for his native Australia. Dr. Brass was associated with the American Museum for 33 years,’’ headlined a press release from the American Museum of Natural History. Leonard Brass left Kennedy International Airport at 10 P. M. Monday, April 18, on Qantas Airways flight #BA506 bound for London. His ultimate destination was Queensland, Australia, where he was born in 1900 and where he would die in 1971.

Leonard wandered parts of Australia, the Solomon Islands, and Africa in his botanical explorations, but for most of his career he was associated with the six Archbold Expeditions to New Guinea sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and financed by Richard Archbold. Brass’s credentials as a superb field botanist were established between 1925 and 1933 when he led three botanical expeditions for Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, one to Papua New Guinea, the second to Cape York in Australia, and the third to the Solomon Islands. Toward the end of this last trip, Brass received a cable from Elmer Merrill, then Director of the Bronx Botanical Garden and an internationally respected expert on botany of the Indo-Australian region, particularly the Philippines, asking if Brass would accept the position as botanist on the First Archbold Expedition. Yes, he would—and so Leonard became the official botanist for the First (1933–1934), Second (1936–1937), and Third (1938–1939) Archbold Expeditions to New Guinea, and was both leader and botanist for the Fourth (1953), Fifth (1956–1957), and Sixth (1959) Archbold Expeditions.

The biological materials gathered during those six forays into New Guinea are stored in various museums and herbaria and to this day constitute the primary source material for systematic revisions critical to understanding diversity of species on the island as well as biogeographic relationships. The specimens were collected in landscapes of forests, grasslands, savannas, rivers, and mountains, and that natural context is conveyed to us through the published expedition summaries ( Archbold and Rand, 1935; Rand and Brass, 1940; Archbold et al., 1942; Brass, 1941, 1956, 1959, 1964). Although the earlier reports were coauthored, Leonard’s hand is in the habitat descriptions, and it is his attention to detail and gift for description that illuminate the later reports. ‘‘Len worked hard in the field,’’ Hobart Van Deusen once confided to Musser as we stood together in his office, ‘‘he was mild-mannered but a very tough field man, worked all day collecting botanical specimens and when not in the forest was at his work table processing the material and recording his observations [fig. 40]. Rather than moving around many times from here to there, Len insisted on staying in one place to thoroughly survey an area, which sometimes put him at odds with the more impatient members of the expediton.’’ Van stopped speaking, his eyes drifted to a window, and whatever he saw prompted a sigh: ‘‘Len was the heart and soul of those Archbold Expeditions. I really miss him.’’