Luzon wide-toothed rat
| Luzon wide-toothed rat | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Abditomys | ||||||||||||
| Musser , 1982 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Abditomys latidens | ||||||||||||
| ( Sanborn , 1952) |
The Luzon wide-toothed rat ( Abditomys latidens ) is a little-known rodent that appears to be endemic to the island of Luzón, part of the Philippines .
So far only two individuals of this extremely rare mouse have been found: one on Mount Data in the north of the island, and another near Los Baños in the south. Both come from very different habitats: the former from a dense mountain rainforest, the latter from a rice field in the lowlands. The long tail and sharp claws suggest that the wide-toothed rat is a tree animal. Possibly it lives like the morphologically similar Sody tree rat ( Kadarsanomys sodyi ) in bamboo thickets .
The Luzon wide-toothed rat has a head body length of 22 centimeters, plus 26 centimeters of tail. The rough fur is brown on the top and yellowish on the underside. The special feature that sets the Luzón wide-toothed rat apart from most other mice is that one toe of each leg has a nail instead of a claw.
Colin Campbell Sanborn , who described the newly discovered animal species in 1952, classified the wide-toothed rat among the real rats . The second specimen was found in 1973. In 1992 Musser and Heaney published the results of a detailed analysis of the specimens. As a result, the Mearns Luzon rat ( Tryphomys adustus ) is the closest relative of the Luzon wide-tooth rat, and neither is closely related to any other mice native to the Philippines. Within the old world mice , the species is counted as part of the Rattus group .
literature
- Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World. 2 volumes. 6th edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD et al. 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9 .
- Guy G. Musser , Lawrence R. Heaney: Philippine rodents: definitions of Tarsomys and Limnomys plus a preliminary assessment of phylogenetic patterns among native Philippine murines (Murinae, Muridae). In: Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. No. 211, 1992, ISSN 0003-0090 , pp. 1-138, online .
Web links
- Abditomys latidens onthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . Retrieved October 16, 2009.