Tachyoryctes macrocephalus Riippell, 1842

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 : 686

Tachyoryctes macrocephalus Riippell, 1842 . Mus. Senckenberg., 3:97.

TYPE LOCALITY: Ethiopia, Shoa .

DISTRIBUTION: Ethiopia; endemic to high southern plateau ( Rupp, 1980).

SYNONYMS: hecki.

COMMENTS: Inhabitant of Afro-alpine moorland and grassland, which it shares with the other Ethiopian endemics Stenocephalemys albocaudata , Lophuromys melanonyx , and Arvicanthis blicki ( Yalden, 1988) . Tachyoryctes splendens ranges from below 1000 m to the high moorland (4000 m) where it occurs together with T. macrocephalus ( Rupp, 1980; Yalden et al., 1976). Yalden (1975) provided ecological observations for T. macrocephalus and morphological contrasts between it and T. splendens. See Yalden (1985, Mammalian Species, 237).