Rattus leucopus (Gray, 1867)

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 : 654

Rattus leucopus (Gray, 1867) . Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1867:598.

TYPE LOCALITY: Australia, Queensland, Cape York = Locality of lectotype (see Mahoney and Richardson, 1988:183) .

DISTRIBUTION: Australia, Queensland; one population ranges from the tip of Cape York south down the E side of the Peninsula to the vicinity of Coen, another from the region of Cooktown south along the coast to Tully; all records are east of the Great Dividing Range (see maps in Taylor and Horner, 1973:43; Watts and Aslin, 1981). New Guinea; widespread in lowlands south of Central Cordillera, and in N and S lowland regions fringing the Owen Stanley Range (see map in Taylor et al., 1982:232).

SYNONYMS: cooktownensis, dobodurae, mcilwraithi, personata , ratticolor, ringens, terra-reginae .

COMMENTS: This species and R. sordidus are the only two native Rattus occurring on both New Guinea and the NE coastal region of Australia ( Taylor et al., 1982). Morphologically related to other species of Rattus native to New Guinea ( Taylor et al., 1982). Morphological data interpreted by Taylor and Horner (1973) to indicate close affiliation between R. leucopus and R. fuscipes from coastal Queensland; genic data discordant with this view ( Baverstock et al., 1983a, 1986).