Petromyscus shortridgei Thomas, 1926

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 : 684

Petromyscus shortridgei Thomas, 1926 . Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1926:302.

TYPE LOCALITY: Extreme S Angola, Rua Cana Falls, 3350 ft .

DISTRIBUTION: W and S Angola and N Namibia (S to Erongo Mtns and Okahandja region); limits unknown; see map in Skinner and Smithers (1990:316).

COMMENTS: Roberts (1951) treated shortridgei as a subspecies of P. bruchus , and Meester et al. (1986) listed it as a subspecies of P. collinus . However, Thomas correctly expressed the distinctness of the animal by describing it as a species, which was also Schlitter's evaluation (in Meester et al., 1986), and that of Skinner and Smithers (1990). The larger size of shortridgei , darker fur with a less silky texture, and lack of postaxillary teats clearly separate it from P. collinus , a judgement based upon specimens in the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum of Natural History. Our estimate of its geographic range, which overlaps that of P. collinus , is also derived from those series.