Gerbilliscus kempi (Wroughton, 1906)

Denys, Christiane, Missoup, Alain Didier, Nicolas, Violaine, Fülling, Olaf, Delapré, Arnaud, Bilong, Charles Felix Bilong, Taylor, Peter John J. & Hutterer, Rainer, 2014, African highlands as mammal diversity hotspots: new records of Lamottemys okuensis Petter, 1986 (Rodentia: Muridae) and other endemic rodents from Mt Oku, Cameroon, Zoosystema 36 (3), pp. 647-690 : 672

Gerbilliscus kempi (Wroughton, 1906)

Tatera kempi Wroughton, 1906: 375 .

Gerbilliscus kempi – Musser & Carleton 2005: 1219.

TYPE LOCALITY. — Nigeria, Aguleri.

MATERIAL EXAMINED. — ZFMK Fülling collections: 91.224.

Morphological characters

A single female was trapped at 1500 m asl in a fallow land by Fülling. Its external measurements are provided in Table 6, the skull and molars are illustrated in Fig. 11 . Initially it was named G. validus Bocage, 1890 by Fülling (1992), but following Bates (1988), Musser & Carleton (2005) restricted the presence of this species to southern savannas of Africa. However, the whole Gerbilliscus genus is still in need of revisions ( Granjon et al. 2012). Pending further revisions of the genus in west-central Africa we keep the name G. kempi for the single Oku specimen. The species was recently reported in the extreme part of northern Cameroon ( Dobigny et al. 2011).

Family NESOMYIDAE Major, 1897 Subfamily CRICETOMYINAE Roberts, 1951

Figures

FIG. 11. — Detail of upper molar row of Gerbilliscus kempi (Wroughton, 1906) ZFMK 91.224 collected by Fülling in owl pellets from Lake Oku cave: A, dorsal view; B, C, ventral view.