Aethomys hindei (Thomas, 1902)

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 : 568

Aethomys hindei (Thomas, 1902) . Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 7, 9:218.

TYPE LOCALITY: Kenya, Machakos .

DISTRIBUTION: N Camaroon, N and NE Zaire, S Sudan, SW Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania (no farther south than Muanza); southern limits unresolved.

SYNONYMS: alghazal, centralis , helleri , medicatus , norae .

COMMENTS: Originally described as a species but later incorrectly arranged as a subspecies of A. kaiseri (e.g., Hollister, 1919; Swynnerton and Hayman, 1951) with which it is sympatric. Actual geographic range of A. hindei is unresolved because many series in museum collections and reported in the literature are misidentified as A. kaiseri . See Bekele and Schütter (1989) for discussion of the Ethiopian record. Davis (19756) recognized two discrete populations, one to the east of the Rift Valley, and one to the west. The complex requires revisionary study to determine significance of appreciable geographic variation in morphological traits among samples.