Rattus fuscipes (Waterhouse, 1839)

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 : 652-653

Rattus fuscipes (Waterhouse, 1839) . Zool. Voy. H.M.S. "Beagle," Mammalia, p. 66.

TYPE LOCALITY: Neotype from Australia, Western Australia, Albany, "Little Grove" on Princess Royal Harbor, 4 mi S Mt Melville; holotype was lost ( Mahoney and Richardson, 1988; Taylor and Horner, 1973) .

DISTRIBUTION: Coastal, subcoastal, and offshore islands of SW Western Australia; S coast from Eyre Peninsula in South Australia to W Victoria; coastal and subcoastal Victoria from Otway Peninsula north to near Rockhampton in Queensland; coastal Queensland from Townsville to Cooktown (see map in Taylor and Horner, 1973:15).

SYNONYMS: assintilis, brazenori, coracius, glauerti , greyii , manicatus , mondraineus, murrayi , peccatus, pelori, ravus .

COMMENTS: Taylor and Horner (1973) suggested, on morphological grounds, that the Queensland population of R. fuscipes (coracius) has a common ancestry with Queensland R. leucopus , a hypothesis reasserted by Taylor et al. (1982, 1983). This relationship, however, is not supported by either chromosomal ( Dennis and Menzies, 1978) or biochemical data ( Baverstock et al., 1983a, 1986). See Taylor and Calaby (1988a, Mammalian Species, 298).