Order Rodentia - Family Muridae
Author
Wilson, Don E.
Author
Reeder, DeeAnn
text
2005
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2
1189
1531
book chapter
0-8018-8221-4
10.5281/zenodo.7316535
Coccymys albidens
(Tate 1951)
[Melomys] albidens
Tate 1951
,
Bull. Am.
Mus
. Nat. Hist., 97: 286
.
Type Locality:
New
Guinea
, Prov. of Papua (= Irian Jaya), Snow Mtns,
15 mi
(
24 km
) N Mt Wilhelmina, Lake Habbema,
3225 m
.
Vernacular Names:
White-toothed Coccymys
.
Distribution:
New
Guinea
, Prov. of Papua (= Irian Jaya); known only from the N slopes of the Snow Mtns (Pegunungan Maoke) at the type locality and downslope at
2800 m
(
9 km
NE Lake Habbema). Possibly endemic to the Snow Mtns; all the past collecting activity in the mountains of
Papua New Guinea
have not discovered the species living there.
Conservation:
IUCN
– Endangered.
Discussion:
Still represented only by
six specimens
collected in 1938. Three of these form the type series, one of the other three had been misidentified as "
Pogonomys sylvestris
" and two were misidentified as "
Pogonomelomys ruemmleri
". Originally described as a species of
Melomys
(
Tate, 1951
)
, but
Musser and Carleton (1993)
placed
albidens
in
Coccymys
because so many of its traits are unlike those defining species within
Melomys
and some characteristics are more similar to those defining
reummleri
. This conclusion was reached independently by
Flannery (1990
b
)
and
Menzies (1990)
, although neither of them formally allocated
albidens
and
ruemmleri
to the same genus. Further study has revealed that
albidens
and
ruemmleri
seem to form a monophyletic group, as defined by morphology, but are separated by a suite of external, cranial, and dental traits (Musser and Lunde, in ms.).