Melomys mixtus Troughton, 1935b

Parnaby, Harry E., Ingleby, Sandy & Divljan, Anja, 2017, Type Specimens of Non-fossil Mammals in the Australian Museum, Sydney, Records of the Australian Museum 69 (5), pp. 277-420 : 361-362

Melomys mixtus Troughton, 1935b

Rec. Aust. Mus. 19(4): 257. (19 September 1935).

Common name. Grassland Melomys .

Current name. Melomys burtoni ( Ramsay, 1887a) , following Jackson & Groves (2015).

Holotype. M.5397 by original designation. Male adult, skull, study skin, collected and presented by Mr H. L. Perriman in 1933 and registered in October 1933.

Condition. Cranium complete; left dentary missing coronoid process, right dentary complete. Study skin: a bald patch on each side of the rear flank, left ear tip frayed.

Type locality. Groote Eylandt, Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Territory, Australia.

Paratypes. (3, by subsequent determination): M.5051 young female (allotype) and M.5052 , male, both study skins and skulls from Groote Eylandt , collected by Rev. H. E. Warren in 1930; M.5396 , male, body in alc., same data as holotype .

Comments. Only the holotype and allotype are mentioned in the original description. The registration number of the allotype is not cited in the original account but the original skin tag attached to M.5051 is labelled “ Allotype ” in red ink in Troughton’s hand. Although Troughton does not mention other paratypes, two specimens (M.5052 and M.5396) are marked as paratypes in what appears to be Troughton’s hand in the M Register. Troughton did not consistently mark paratypes as such in the register but these are likely to be the only paratypes as there are no other specimens in the AM database with suitable dates.