Niviventer fulvescens (Gray, 1847)

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 : 634

Niviventer fulvescens (Gray, 1847) . Cat. Hodgson Coll. Br. Mus., p. 18.

TYPE LOCALITY: Nepal .

DISTRIBUTION: From S Himalayas ( Nepal and N India) through Bangladesh, S China (incl. Hainan Isl), and Indochina (incl. Con Son Isl off Vietnam) to Peninsular Thailand, Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and Bali.

SYNONYMS: baturus, besuki, blythi , bukit , caudatior , cinnamomeus , condorensis, flavipilis , gracilis , huang , jacobsoni, jerdoni , lepidus , lepturoides, lieftincki, ling , lotipes, marinus, mekongis, mentosus , minor , octomammis , orbus , pan, temmincki, treubii, vulpicolor, wongi .

COMMENTS: Some authors have referred to populations on the Sunda Shelf and S Indochina as bukit , and those occurring farther north as fulvescens ( Chasen, 1940; J. T. Marshall, Jr., 1977«; Musser, 1981 b), pending a taxonomic revision of the group. Recent study now supports the hypothesis that samples of bukit represent N. fulvescens ( Abe, 1983) , an arrangement reflecting the earlier view of Osgood (1932:305): "The relationship of fulvescens to southern forms is obvious in several instances, especially in that of R. f. bukit which can at most be no more than a subspecies." This hypothesis will require testing by carful systematic revision of the fulvescens-bukit complex.

Niviventer fulvescens is the only member of the genus with a geographic distribution encompassing SE Asian mainland and some islands of the Sunda Shelf; other murines with roughly equivalent ranges are Berylmys bowersii, Chiropodomys gliroides, Leopoldamys sabanus, L. edwardsi, and Maxomys surifer ( Musser and Newcomb, 1983). Spermatozoal morphology of Malayan bukit described by Breed and Yong (1986) in comparative context.