Mus neavei (Thomas, 1910)

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 : 626

Mus neavei (Thomas, 1910) . Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 8, 5:90.

TYPE LOCALITY: E Zambia, E Loangwe Dist., Petauke, 2400 ft .

DISTRIBUTION: S Zaire, E Zambia, S Zimbabwe, Transvaal of South Africa, W Mozambique, and S Tanzania; limits unknown.

COMMENTS: Subgenus Nannomys . Originally described as a species, neavei was later treated as a subspecies of M. sorella ( Verheyen, 1965a) , an arrangement accepted by Ansell (1978), Meester et al. (1986), and Skinner and Smithers (1990). Petter (1981 b), however, pointed out that while a member of the A4, sorella group, neavei should be treated as a separate species; in morphology and body size it appears to be close to A4, oubanguii ( Petter, 1981b) . Our study (series in the American Museum of Natural History, the British Museum of Natural History, and the National Museum of Natural History) corroborates Petter's view. A4, neavei is a distinct species and easily distinguished from A4, sorella by its richer tawny fur, much smaller size, more delicate cranium, and shorter molar rows (3.0-3.2 mm in 7 examples of neavei , 3.2-3.7 mm in nine sorella ). How M. neavei is related to A4, oubanguii and the small-bodied A4. baoulei is unresolved. Meester et al. (1986:282) summarized published distributional information. Supposed records of A4, neavei from Malawi represent other species ( Ansell and Dowsett, 1988).