Rattus timorensis Kitchener, Aplin, and Boeadi 1991

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 : 1491

Rattus timorensis Kitchener, Aplin, and Boeadi 1991

Rattus timorensis Kitchener, Aplin, and Boeadi 1991 , Rec. West. Aust. Mus ., 15: 446.

Type Locality: Indonesia, Nusa Tenggara, Timor, Gunung Mutis, 1900 m , 7 km E Desa Nenas.

Vernacular Names: Timor Forest Rat.

Distribution: Known only from the type locality.

Conservation: IUCN – Data Deficient.

Discussion: Rattus species-group unresolved. Represented only by the holotype. Some of the large series of subfossil fragments collected in E Timor by Glover (1986) may be this species. Phylogenetic affinities unknown and possibly not even a member of Rattus ( Kitchener et al., 1991 b) . Albumin immunological analysis suggests a close phyletic affinity with Bunomys chrysocomus from Sulawesi and Komodomys rintjanus from Nusa Tenggara ( Watts and Baverstock, 1994 b); the close alliance between rintjanus and timorensis , and their great phylogenetic distance from Rattus , is supported by a recent unpublished allozyme electrophoresis study (K. Aplin, in litt., 2004). Recently, K. Helgen (in litt., 2003) collected an extant specimen from a forest fragment on Timor that is not R. timorensis , but an undescribed species that is also represented by large series in Glover’s subfossil collections.