Myomyscus verreauxii (Smith 1834)

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 : 1414

Myomyscus verreauxii (Smith 1834)

[Myomyscus] verreauxii (Smith 1834) , South African Quart. J., 2: 156.

Type Locality: South Africa, Western Cape Province, Cape of Good Hope, near Cape Town.

Vernacular Names: Verreaux's White-footed Rat.

Synonyms: Myomyscus verreauxi (Sclater 1901) ; Myomyscus veroxii (Smith 1834) .

Distribution: South Africa, Western Cape Province, from Olifants River in the west to Nature's Valley, Plettenberg Bay in the east ( de Graaff, 1981:218; Skinner and Smithers, 1990:271).

Conservation: IUCN – Least Concern.

Discussion: A distinctive South African endemic confined to the fynbos biome ( Mugo et al., 1995). Taxonomy reviewed by Meester et al. (1986); distributional and biological information provided by de Graaff (1981) and Skinner and Smithers (1990). Roberts listed measurements and treated verreauxii as a subspecies of " Myomys colonus ." Analyses of complete mtDNA cytochrome b sequences ( Lecompte et al., 2002 b) and nuclear IRBP gene sequences ( Lecompte, 2003) separates M. verreauxii from M. brockmani and M. yemeni ( M. angolensis has yet to be included in molecular inquiries) and clusters it with Colomys and Zelotomys , providing an hypothesis that should be tested with morphological data and sequences from a wider range of genes. Ultimately, verreauxii may represent the only species of Myomyscus . Reviewed by de Graaff (1997 t). Earliest fossils of Myomyscus , presumably either M. verreauxii or something related to it, come from late Pliocene deposits of South Africa (see review by Denys, 1999).