Pseudomys higginsi (Trouessart, 1897)

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 : 647

Pseudomys higginsi (Trouessart, 1897) . Cat. Mamm. Viv. Foss., 1:473.

TYPE LOCALITY: Australia, Tasmania, Kentishbury .

DISTRIBUTION: Australia; extant population known only from Tasmania; represented on mainland in Victoria and E New South Wales by Late Pleistocene samples ( Wakefield, 1972b).

SYNONYMS: australiensis, leucopus (of Higgins and Petterd, 1881, not Rafinesque, 1818).

COMMENTS: Spermatozoal morphology (Breed, 1983) and electrophoretic data ( Baverstock et al., 1981) placed P. higginsi with most other species of Pseudomys , but phallic anatomy ( Lidicker and Brylski, 1987) clustered P. higginsi with P. australis , P. gouldii , and P. nanus . Wakefield (1972b) described australiensis as a subspecies based on Late Pleistocene fossils.