Parotomys brantsii (A. Smith, 1834)

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 : 682

Parotomys brantsii (A. Smith, 1834) . S. Afr. Quart. J., Ser. 2, 2: 150.

TYPE LOCALITY: South Africa, Cape Province, Little Namaqualand, "toward the mouth of the Orange River."

DISTRIBUTION: C and NW Cape Province, South Africa, to SW Botswana and SE Namibia.

SYNONYMS: deserti , luteolus , pallida , rufifrons .

COMMENTS: Although Port Nolloth, as restricted by Thomas and Schwann (1904:178), is usually cited as the type locality of P. brantsii (e.g., Ellerman et al., 1953; Meester et al., 1986), a careful reading of Thomas and Schwann suggests that they had actually associated one of Smith's cotypes with a series collected at Klipfontein, a place some 50 miles inland from Port Nolloth. The notion that the type locality was "restricted" to Port Nolloth apparently stems from an inadvertent indication in Roberts (1951). A future revisor of the species should clarify this matter.