Mastomys natalensis (Smith, 1834)

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 : 611

Mastomys natalensis (Smith, 1834) . S. Afr. Quart. ser. 2, 2:156.

TYPE LOCALITY: South Africa, Natal, Port Natal (= Durban) .

DISTRIBUTION: Recorded from South Africa (S and E Cape Prov., Transkei, Natal, E Transvaal), Zimbabwe, C and NE Namibia (see map in Skinner and Smithers, 1990:268); apparently also EC Tanzania (Morogoro, see Leirs et al., 1989) and Senegal in W Africa.

SYNONYMS: caffer , illovoensis , komatiensis, microdon , muscardinus , ovamboensis, zuluensis.

COMMENTS: Characterized by 2N=32, FN=54 and a distinctive hemoglobin electromorph (Green et al., 1980). Samples with these chromosomal features have also been found in Senegal (Duplantier et al., 1990«) and EC Tanzania ( Leirs et al., 1989). This species probably occurs in Angola, S Zaire, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, and farther north in Tanzania and perhaps may even range more extensively in W Africa, but at this time samples from those regions have not been identified by linking chromosomal and biochemical data to morphology. Realizing this problem, some regional faunal accounts provisionally list specimens under M. natalensis (e.g., Ansell and Dowsett, 1988, for Malawi mammals). Listed synonyms are only those pertaining to South Africa for reasons explained by Meester et al. (1986).