Rattus sordidus

• 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 sordidus; Queensland; Cape York; Jaya; Rattus rattus
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/7285068; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7285068

Rattus sordidus (Gould, 1858). Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1857:242 [1858]. TYPE LOCALITY: Australia, Queensland, open plains Darling Downs = locality of lectotype (see Mahoney and Richardson, 1988). DISTRIBUTION: Australia; E coast from the tip of Cape York to NE New South Wales, and some off-shore islands (see Watts and Aslin, 1981:239). New Guinea; lowlands south of Central Cordillera from Dobodura in E Papua New Guinea west and north to Koembe in Irian Jaya (see map in Taylor et al., 1983:265). SYNONYMS: aramia, brachyrhinus, bunae, conatus, gestri, gestroi, youngi. COMMENTS: One of the two species of native Rattus in the New Guinea-Australian region that occurs on both land masses. On morphological evidence, Taylor and Horner (1973) arranged villosissimus and colletti as subspecies of R. sordidus . Later evaluations, however, based on chromosomal, biochemical, and hybridization data, suggested the three should be viewed as separate species in the same monophyletic cluster (Baverstock et al., 1977d, 1983a, 1986), which is the way they are treated in current faunal accounts and catalogs (Mahoney and Richardson, 1988; Watts and Aslin, 1981). 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 659, DOI:10.5281/zenodo.7353098