Lemniscomys Trouessart, 1881

Denys, Christiane, Missoup, Alain Didier, Nicolas, Violaine, Fülling, Olaf, Delapré, Arnaud, Bilong, Charles Felix Bilong, Taylor, Peter John J. & Hutterer, Rainer, 2014, African highlands as mammal diversity hotspots: new records of Lamottemys okuensis Petter, 1986 (Rodentia: Muridae) and other endemic rodents from Mt Oku, Cameroon, Zoosystema 36 (3), pp. 647-690 : 668

Genus Lemniscomys Trouessart, 1881

Two species of the genus occur on Mt Oku: L. striatus (Linnaeus, 1758) and L. mittendorfi Eisentraut, 1968 . Described by Eisentraut (1968) as a sub-species of L. striatus , L. mittendorfi was finally raised to species level based upon its palatal morphology, morphometrics and chromosome formula ( Van der Straeten & Verheyen 1980; Fülling 1992; Musser & Carleton 2005). However, no clear comparison with L. striatus was made. Based upon the external characters of the two species housed in ZFMK, and acccording to Fülling’s (1992) observations of palatal ridges differences, we confirm the presence of both species on Mt Oku. Lemniscomys mittendorfi representatives are characterized by a large dorsal black stripe and five discontinuous lines of red spots on each side of the median line, while in L. striatus the median black stripe is narrow. Lemniscomys mittendorfi specimens have a short tail compared to HB, a small hindfoot (18-21 mm, against 24-26 mm in L. striatus ) and are smaller than L. striatus representatives ( Table 6).