Petromyscus collinus (Thomas and Hinton 1925)

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 : 954

Petromyscus collinus (Thomas and Hinton 1925)

[Praomys] collinus Thomas and Hinton 1925 , Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1925: 237.

Type Locality: Namibia, Damaraland, Karibib, northwest of Windhoek, 3142 ft (958 m).

Vernacular Names: Pygmy Rock Mouse.

Synonyms: Petromyscus bruchus ( Thomas and Hinton 1925) ; Petromyscus capensis Shortridge and Carter 1938 ; Petromyscus kaokoensis Roberts 1938 ; Petromyscus kurzi Lehmann 1955 ; Petromyscus namibensis Roberts 1948 ; Petromyscus rufus Lundholm 1955 ; Petromyscus variabilis Lundholm 1955 .

Distribution: SW Angola (along the Inselberge belt between Namib and mopani areas; Crawford-Cabral, 1966 b, 1998) and Kaokoveld region in N Namibia, south through Namibia, to W Limpopo of South Africa south of the Orange River in Goodhouse and Pella areas; also recorded from Western Cape Prov.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Reviewed by Skinner and Smithers (1990) and de Graaff (1997 jj). Roberts (1951) listed capensis , known only from Goodhouse, as a species, and Meester et al. (1986) treated it as a full synonym of P. collinus barbouri . In arranging capensis as a subspecies of P. collinus , however, Shortridge and Carter (1938) properly reflected its affinity and appreciated that its morphology is unlike P. barbouri , which they described in the same paper and knew well. Roberts (1951) also treated bruchus (S Namibia, Great Brukkaros Mtn) as a separate species, merging the northern shortridgei as a subspecies. The latter is clearly a species separate from P. collinus (see comments under shortridgei ), but the status of bruchus will have to be illuminated in a revision; the few specimens we have seen from Great Brukkaros Mtn are examples of P. collinus .