Dendromus oreas Osgood 1936

Dendromus oreas Osgood 1936, Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Zool. Ser., 20: 236.

Type Locality: Cameroon, Southwest Prov., southwest side of Mt Cameroon, 9000 ft (2743 m).

Vernacular Names: Cameroon African Climbing Mouse.

Distribution: Mt Cameroon, Mts Kupe and Manenguba in the massif about 70 mi (113 km) NE Mt Cameroon (Eisentraut, 1963, 1968; Osgood, 1936; Rosevear, 1969), and possibly in mtns of extreme E Cameroon.

Conservation: IUCN – Vulnerable.

Discussion: Although described by Osgood (1936) as a species, oreas was later included in D. mesomelas (Bohmann, 1942; Misonne, 1974; Rosevear, 1969). Study of the holotype supports Osgood’s (1936) view that oreas is related to what he called D. lunaris (= D. nyasae) and is not a geographic outlier of either the montane East African D. insignis or southern African D. mesomelas (see those accounts). Judged from the wide range in molar length that Rosevear (1969:472) recorded for oreas, his Cameroon sample is either extremely variable, which is unusual in the genus, or consists of two species.