470.

Typical Striped Grass Mouse

Lemniscomys striatus

French: Rat-rayé d'Afrique / German: Eigentliche Streifengrasmaus / Spanish: Raton de hierba listado tipico

Other common names: Striated Lemniscomys

Taxonomy. Mus striatus Linnaeus, 1758,

“India.” Corrected by O. Thomas in 1911 to “Sierra Leone,” West Africa.

Recent phylogeographic studies suggest that L. striatus as presently constituted contains at least four lineages which may constitute cryptic species within a species complex. Some of these entities correspond roughly with geographical limits of five subspecies proposed by E. Van der Straeten and W. N. Verheyen in 1980. Further research required.

Distribution. Widespread in tropical Africa in Guinea-Bissau and from Sierra Leone and Guinea E to S South Sudan and W Kenya, and S to N Angola, S DR Congo, NE Zambia, SW Tanzania, and extreme N Malawi; isolated populations occur in SW Sudan and SW Ethiopia.

Descriptive notes. Head—body 97139 mm, tail 96-153 mm, ear 12-21 mm, hindfoot 22-29 mm; weight 28-67 g. Fur of the Typical Striped Grass Mouse is coarse and brown above, often flecked with ocher, contrasting with white below. Single well-marked black mid-dorsal stripe extends from neck to base of tail, and each of fourlateral pale yellow stripes on flank is broken into spots; additional spots occur below, not arranged in lines. Ears are large, rounded, and covered with short rufous hairs. Eye-ring is rufous. Tail is long (c.125% of head-body length), dark above, pale below, sparsely haired. Forefeet have three functional digits. Females have 2+2 = 4 pairs of nipples. Chromosomal complement has 2n = 44, FN = 68-74 (West Africa).

Habitat. Variety of grasslands with good grass cover, as well as agricultural areas. Often trapped on forest edges or clearings in forest, but neverin forest itself.

Food and Feeding. Typical Striped Grass Mice eat grass stems and inflorescences, fruits, leaves, and seeds.

Breeding. Breeding is seasonal and linked to rainfall. Where rain occurs in all months (e.g. Uganda), there are two breeding periods annually and females can have 1-3 litters per year. Gestation lasts 23 days. Littersize is 2-8.

Activity patterns. Typical Striped Grass Mice are terrestrial and crepuscular, with some nocturnal activity around midnight. Population cycles are strongly controlled by annual early-ssummerfires in grasslands.

Movements, Home range and Social organization. Typical Striped Grass Mice build nests of shredded grass on ground surface in dense vegetation.

Status and Conservation. Classified as Least Concern on The IUCN Red List.

Bibliography. Cheeseman & Delany (1979), Happold (2013a), Monadjem etal. (2015), Neal (1970, 1977), Nicolas, Mboumba et al. (2008), Thomas (1911c¢), Van der Straeten & Verheyen (1980).