Niviventer Marshall, 1976

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 : 632

Niviventer Marshall, 1976 . Family Muridae: rats and mice. Government Printing Office, Bangkok, p. 402.

TYPE SPECIES: Mus niviventer Hodgeson, 1836 .

COMMENTS: Diagnosed and contrasted with other Indo-Sundaic genera by Musser (1981 b), who also reviewed morphological, chromosomal, and distributional information. Morphological and geographic aspects of seven species ( andersoni , brahma , cremoriventer , eha , excelsior , hinpoon , and langbianis ) are defined; limits of the others ( confucianus , coxingi , culturatus , fulvescens , niviventer , and rapit ) require resolution by taxonomic revision.

Closest phylogenetic relatives are Indochinese Chiromyscus and Dacnomys ; among Sundaic genera, Niviventer shares dental derivations with Berylmys , Leopoldamys , and Maxomys ( Musser, 1981 b; Musser and Newcomb, 1983). Analyses of chromosomal data postulated chromosomal similarities among Niviventer, Lenothrix, and possibly Maxomys , and an origin from a common ancestor ( Gadi and Sharma, 1983). Analyses of biochemical and morphological data for Malayan Peninsula species documented by Chan et al. (1979), who demonstrated substantial separation from Rattus and alliance with Lenothrix in protein variation,but equivocal affinities in morphological context. Spermatozoal morphology equivocal in assessing phylogenetic relationships ( Breed and Yong, 1986). Phallic morphology of three Chinese taxa described by Yang and Fang (1988) in context of assessing phylogenetic relationships among Chinese murines. See Musser (1981 b) for discussion of the original citation.