Mus triton (Thomas, 1909)

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 : 629

Mus triton (Thomas, 1909) . Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 8, 4:548.

TYPE LOCALITY: Kenya, Mt Elgon, Kirui, 6000 ft .

DISTRIBUTION: N Zaire and E Zaire ( Kivu region ), Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Tete Dist. of Mozambique, Zambia, and Angola.

SYNONYMS: birungensis , fors, imatongensis, murilla, naivashae .

COMMENTS: Subgenus Nannomys . Listed as a questionable synonym of M. mahomet by Yalden et al. (1976:30) who were unsure about the equivalence of mahomet and triton and merely noted that Ethiopian samples previously identified as triton were really mahomet . The description of Mus birungensis ( Lonnberg and Gyldenstolpe, 1925) mirrors the range of variation of M. triton in series (in the American Museum of Natural History) we have examinied from the Kivu region of E Zaire. Considerable chromosomal polymorphism has been reported in samples identified as M. triton ( Robbins and Baker, 1978) . Extant southern limit of species is Zambia and Tete Dist. of Mozambique (about 17°S), but it was present in Natal, South Africa up to about 60,000 years ago ( Avery, 1991).