Dendromus mesomelas Brants, 1827

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 : 543

Dendromus mesomelas Brants, 1827 . Het. Geslacht der Muizen, p. 122.

TYPE LOCALITY: South Africa, E Cape Prov., Sunday's River, east of Port Elizabeth .

DISTRIBUTION: Discontinuous ranges in South Africa (SW Cape Prov. east to Natal and E Transvaal), C Mozambique, extreme NE Zambia, N Botswana (see Map in Skinner and Smithers, 1990:307), extreme NW and NE Zaire ( Ansell, 1978), highlands of N and S Malawi ( Ansell and Dowsett, 1988), mountains of SW (Rungwe) and EC (Uluguru) Tanzania, and SE Zaire (Marungu); extent of range unresolved.

SYNONYMS: ayresi , hintoni, major , nyasae , pumilio , typicus , typus .

COMMENTS: We treat some of the names usually included in D. mesomelas (see Misonne, 1974) as distinct species (see accounts of insignis , kivu , oreas , and vernayi ). Judged by our study of specimens, samples from SE Zaire and SW Tanzania are morphologically similar to series of D. kivu , and the relationship among these and samples of true mesomelas has to be resolved by critical systematic revision. We include major , which was described as a subspecis of D. mesomelas (see St. Leger, 1930), but its relationships should be reexamined because of its large body size.