Rattus argentiventer

• Main Authors: Guy G. Musser, Michael D. Carleton
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Smithsonian Institution Press 1993
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Chordata; Mammalia; Rodentia; Muridae; Rattus; Rattus argentiventer; Sunda; Bali; Sumba; Rattus rattus
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7284911; http://treatment.plazi.org/id/03D087AEFF63FF2EFEF10D54F9C2F69F

Rattus argentiventer (Robinson and Kloss, 1916). J. Strs. Br. Roy. Asiat. Soc., 73:274. TYPE LOCALITY: Indonesia, west coast of Sumatra, Pasir Ganting. DISTRIBUTION: Recorded from Thailand, Koh Samui off the east coast of peninsular Thailand, Cambodia, and S Vietnam in Indochina; the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Kangean Isl, and Bali on the Sunda Shelf; islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Komodo, Rintja, Flores, Sumba, and Timor in Nusa Tenggara (Lesser Sunda Isis); Mindoro and Mindanao Isis in the Philippines; Sulawesi; and one place and date of collection in New Guinea. SYNONYMS: bali, brevicaudatus, chaseni, hoxaensis, pesticulus, saturnus, umbriventer. COMMENTS: The incorrect historical association of argentiventer as a subspecies of Rattus rattus was summarized by Musser (1973b). Judged by its close morphological alliance with species Ellerman (1941) placed in subgenus Rattus, which are mostly mainland Asian in origins, and its peculiar geographic distribution that is discordant with ranges of endemic species, R. argentiventer seems clearly an element that is native to Indochina and was inadvertently introduced into the endemic and highly distinctive murine faunas of the Sunda Shelf, Philippines, Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara, and New Guinea (Musser, 1973b; Musser and Holden, 1991; Musser and Newcomb, 1983; Taylor et al., 1982), possibly with the spread of rice culture. Rattus hoxaensis from C Vietnam, described by Dao (1960), probably represents R. argentiventer. Published as part of Guy G. Musser & Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, pp. 501-755 in Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London :Smithsonian Institution Press on page 650, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7353098