Niviventer tenaster (Thomas, 1916)

Guy G. Musser & Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 501-755 : 635

Niviventer tenaster (Thomas, 1916) . Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 8, 17:425.

TYPE LOCALITY: Burma (Tenasserim), Mt Mulaiyit, 5000-6000 ft .

DISTRIBUTION: Mountains of Assam ( India), S Burma (also possibly N Burma), and Vietnam.

SYNONYMS: champa.

COMMENTS: A large-bodied species that is sympatric with what has been identified as either N. bukit or N. fulvescens ( Musser, 1981b) . Samples from N Burma, which Musser provisionally referred to as N. coxingi , are not that species and are similar in morphology to N. tenaster , but larger in body size and darker in fur coloration. To determine whether the N Burma population is a separate species or a geographic variant of N. tenaster , and the nature of the relationship of all these highland Indochinese populations with the large-bodied N. coxingi of Taiwan, will have to be resolved by careful systematic revision ( Musser, 1981b). Robinson and Kloss (1922) described champa as a subspecies of Rattus bukit .