Steatomys pratensis Peters 1846

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Nesomyidae, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 930-955 : 945

Steatomys pratensis Peters 1846

Steatomys pratensis Peters 1846 , Bericht Verhandl. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 11: 258.

Type Locality: Mozambique, Zambezi River, Tete.

Vernacular Names: Common African Fat Mouse.

Synonyms: Steatomys edulis Peters 1852 ; Steatomys leucorhynchus Hill and Carter 1937 ; Steatomys maunensis Roberts 1932 ; Steatomys natalensis Roberts 1929 ; Steatomys nyasae Lawrence and Loveridge 1953 .

Distribution: Southern and East Africa—S Angola (Carter and Hill, 1941) and N Namibia; eastward through N Botswana ( Smithers, 1971), Zimbabwe ( Smithers and Wilson, 1979), N South Africa (Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, and N KwaZulu-Natal; de Graaff, 1997 ff; Taylor, 1998), and Mozambique ( Smithers and Lobao Tello, 1976); north through Zambia ( Ansell, 1978), Malawi ( Ansell and Dowsett, 1988; Chitaukali et al., 2001; Lawrence and Loveridge, 1953), and Tanzania ( AMNH material) to EC Ethiopia (Demeter, 1982).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Formerly included bocagei and opimus (see those accounts). Demeter (1982) identified the lone Ethiopian record (Sabober Plains, Awash National Park) as S. pratensis because of their large skull size compared with S. parvus ; his range of values match those for S. pratensis in the AMNH, not the larger S. opimus which occurs no closer than extreme SW Sudan. Although leucorhynchus is usually included in S. krebsii ( Coetzee, 1977 a; Meester et al., 1986), Crawford-Cabral (1998) provisionally recognized it as a species because relative ear length of the holotype ( Angola, Capelongo) is more similar to S. pratensis ; he also suggested that leucorhynchus may prove to be another geographic sample of the latter. After studying the holotype of leucorhynchus and others from Capelongo ( AMNH 85815, 85816, 86976) in S Angola, we agree with that assessment. We have not seen material between Ethiopia and the West African S. caurinus ; that region is mostly occupied by the much larger-bodied S. opimus . Identified from the early Pleistocene of South Africa based on isolated molars ( Avery, 1998).