Systematic Review of New Guinea Leptomys (Muridae, Murinae) with Descriptions of Two New Species

A Systematic Review of SulawesiBunomys(Muridae, Murinae) with the Description of Two New Species

“…I declare this upfront because one geographic region outside of Sulawesi is claimed to harbor another species of Bunomys. Some researchers regard the Flores endemic Paulamys naso (Musser, 1981b;Musser et al, 1986) to be a member of Bunomys (Kitchener et al, 1991Corbet and Hill, 1992;. But Paulamys naso is part of a Rattus-like fauna endemic to Flores and some nearby islands that includes yet another undescribed species of Paulamys; Komodomys rintjanus and several undescribed species of that genus; ''Rattus'' hainaldi, a close relative of Komodomys as revealed by DNA sequences; and three species of Papagomys, one of which has yet to be named and described (Musser et al, MS).…”

High resolution images for 'Morphological and geographic definitions of the Sulawesian shrew rats Echiothrix leucura and E. centrosa (Muridae, Murinae), and description of a new species of sucking louse (Phthiraptera, Anoplura).' (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, no. 391)

“…Among murines, this osteological design of the pterygoid-alisphenoid region is repeated only in the Philippine shrew rat Rhynchomys (see the cranial illustrations in Musser and Heaney [1992: 78] and Balete et al [2007: 293]) and the Sulawesian shrew rat Paucidentomys (Esselstyn, et al, 2012). The best way to appreciate this severe modification is to first describe the pterygoid region in the Sulawesian Maxomys dollmani, which expresses a pattern common to nearly all other murines, especially those from the Indomalayan region, Sulawesi, Philippines, New Guinea, and Australia (see the cranial illustrations in Musser, 1982Musser, , 1991Musser and Newcomb, 1983;Musser and Holden, 1991;Musser and Heaney, 1992;Flannery, 1995;Musser et al, 2008;Musser and Lunde, 2009;Heaney et al, 2012;Balete et al, 2012), as well as species in Europe and Africa (see the cranial drawings in Happold, 2013).…”

Systematic Reviews of New Guinea Coccymys and “Melomys” Albidens (Muridae, Murinae) with Descriptions of New Taxa

“…No modern or fossil examples have been recorded from the Tamrau, Arfak, or other mountains on the Vogelkop (Bird's Head) Peninsula (see Aplin, 1998;Aplin et al, 1999, who summarize Late Quaternary vertebrates from the Vogelkop). Most of these highlands remain unexplored for their mammalian faunas (Helgen, 2007c;Musser et al, 2008 Helgen, 2007a).…”

“…Coccymys kirrhos is one more addition to the seven montane and three lowland species of marsupials, bats, and rodents that occur only on the southeastern peninsula of Papua New Guinea (Helgen, 2005(Helgen, , 2007aMusser et al, 2008). These species signal that region, especially the montane areas, to be a realm of mammalian endemism, possibly a reflection of the past geological history of New Guinea when the southeastern peninsula was an island separated from the emergent western portion of New Guinea until the Pliocene (Aplin et al, 1993;Flannery, 1995).…”