Myomys Thomas, 1915

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 : 630

Myomys Thomas, 1915 . Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 8, 16:477.

TYPE SPECIES: Epimys colonus (see Allen, 1939; = Mus verreauxii A. Smith, 1834 ).

SYNONYMS: Myomyscus .

COMMENTS: Because some workers claimed colonus was unidentifiable and therefore Myomys is invalid, Myomyscus was proposed by Shortridge (1942) to replace Myomys . The problem and historical opinions were reviewed by Roberts (1951), Ellerman et al. (1953), Rosevear (1969), Van der Straeten and Verheyen (1978b) and Meester et al. (1986). Should Myomys really prove to have no nomenclatural status, Myomyscus is the name to use for this group.

In aspects of their morphology, the species seem to be arboreal and scansorial counterparts of those in Mastomys , all of which are primarily terrestrial. Some species of Myomys may be closely related to the Mastomys complex. Chromosomal and immunological data related Myomys fumatus to species of Mastomys ( Qumsiyeh et al., 1990) , and morphometric analyses placed M. verreauxii closer to Mastomys than to other species of Myomys ( Van der Straeten and Dieterlen, 1983) . Some workers (e.g., Misonne, 1969, 1974; Qumsiyeh et al., 1990) included Myomys and Myomyscus within Praomys . We retain Myomys separate from Mastomys and Praomys until the species within each of these groups are defined, and the systematic relationships among the groups are assessed by careful revision.