Mus subrufus Krefft, 1862

Parnaby, Harry E., Ingleby, Sandy & Divljan, Anja, 2017, Type Specimens of Non-fossil Mammals in the Australian Museum, Sydney, Records of the Australian Museum 69 (5), pp. 277-420 : 367

Mus subrufus Krefft, 1862 nomen oblitum

The Sydney Morning Herald, XLVI (7608): 2, col. 5. (24 October 1862)

Common name. Desert Mouse.

Current name. Pseudomys desertor Troughton, 1932c ; following Jackson & Groves (2015).

? Syntype:?PA.58, sex and age not determined, two cranial fragments and damaged right dentary, original entry in Palmer Register is “ Mus subrufus, Murray River , skin in bottle head removed”, entered in Palmer Register c. 1877. Another specimen registered by Palmer is also a possible syntype: PA.53, specimen not sighted in 2015 and no record of it being sighted during the past few decades. The original P Register entry is “ Mus subrufus ”, no locality or other data, “headless skin in bottle”. The skull fragments currently labelled?PA.58 had a note in the skull box stating that the fragments were found in a box with two labels in 1970. Both labels were written in old ink by the same hand, one states “ Mus subrufus Murray River ” written on cardboard, while the other states “ Mus subrufus ” written on a label with a blue lined margin. We have not determined who wrote the labels, but the writing is not inconsistent with that of Krefft. It is not clear why the skull fragments were assigned to PA.58. It appears that the fragments could either be PA.53, PA.58 or another specimen not registered by Palmer.

Condition.?PA.58, incomplete cranium, consisting of two fragments: an incomplete rostrum with both incisors, and a right maxillary fragment with intact molar row. Right dentary only, missing distal section of ascending ramus, missing incisor.

Type locality. Between Gol Gol Creek, Victoria, and Darling River, NSW, Australia (Mahoney & Richardson, 1988).

Comments. Mahoney & Richardson (1988) discuss this name and state that subrufus Krefft, 1862 and murrayensis Krefft, 1862, (which Krefft proposed as a subspecies of subrufus ) are both unused senior synonyms of Pseudomys desertor Troughton and should not be used, i.e. are nomina oblita. Wakefield (1966) cites five specimens in MV that were from several dozen specimens listed as Mus subrufus by Krefft, presumably his original series. PA.53 and 58 are possible syntypes of subrufus Krefft. Alternatively , the skull fragments could have been from a specimen sent to Krefft after publication of his account. Krefft received mammal specimens from a Mr and Mrs Hay from the “Lower Murray”, which are listed in AM annual reports from the second half of the 1860s.

In his newspaper article published 24 October, Krefft (1862) proposed the name Mus subrufus murrayensis for what he referred to as an undescribed species. He had read a paper in the previous month (10 September) in which he proposed the name Mus subrufus but this was not published until 1865 as a separate ( Krefft, 1865d), and the same paper appeared subsequently in Trans. Phil. Soc. N.S.W. ( Krefft, 1866b).

Rodents originally registered in the Palmer Register as PA.49 to at least PA.54 resulted in inadvertent double registrations, including PA.53, assigned to both Mus subrufus but also to Mus musavora Ramsay , see previous account for the latter.