Petromyscinae Roberts, 1951

Guy G. Musser & Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 501-755 : 683

Subfamily Petromyscinae Roberts, 1951 . Mammals S Africa, p. 434.

COMMENTS: Of the two genera in this subfamily, Delanymys and Petromyscus, Lavocat (1964) wrote that their molar cusp patterns showed structural links between Mystromys and the dendromurines, a view shared by Verheyen (1965b). Petter (1967b), however, interpreted the derived molar traits shared by Delanymys and Petromyscus to indicate close phylogenetic alliance and he united them in the subfamily Petromyscinae , also pointing out that they had no close relationship to dendromurines. Carleton and Musser (1984) provided a diagnosis, characterization, and other remarks on contents and definition of the Petromyscinae . They also noted that aside from the shared molar peculiarities, the two genera are very different from one another and may not be part of the same monophyletic group. The subfamily is represented in the Plio-Pleistocene by the South African Stenodontomys darti ( Pocock, 1987) .