Rattus timorensis Kitchener, Aplin, and Boeadi 1991

Rattus timorensis Kitchener, Aplin, and Boeadi 1991, Rec. West. Aust. Mus ., 15: 446.

Type Locality: Indonesia, Nusa Tenggara, Timor, Gunung Mutis, 1900 m, 7 km E Desa Nenas.

Vernacular Names: Timor Forest Rat.

Distribution: Known only from the type locality.

Conservation: IUCN – Data Deficient.

Discussion: Rattus species-group unresolved. Represented only by the holotype. Some of the large series of subfossil fragments collected in E Timor by Glover (1986) may be this species. Phylogenetic affinities unknown and possibly not even a member of Rattus (Kitchener et al., 1991 b) . Albumin immunological analysis suggests a close phyletic affinity with Bunomys chrysocomus from Sulawesi and Komodomys rintjanus from Nusa Tenggara (Watts and Baverstock, 1994 b); the close alliance between rintjanus and timorensis, and their great phylogenetic distance from Rattus, is supported by a recent unpublished allozyme electrophoresis study (K. Aplin, in litt., 2004). Recently, K. Helgen (in litt., 2003) collected an extant specimen from a forest fragment on Timor that is not R. timorensis, but an undescribed species that is also represented by large series in Glover’s subfossil collections.