Order Rodentia - Family Muridae
Author
Guy G. Musser
Author
Michael D. Carleton
text
1993
Smithsonian Institution Press
Washington and London
Editor
Don E. Wilson
Editor
DeeAnn M. Reeder
Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition)
501
755
book chapter
http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7353098
1-56098-217-9
7353098
Subfamily
Platacanthomyinae Alston, 1876
.
Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1876:81
.
COMMENTS: Diagnosis, general characteristics, and natural history provided by
Carleton and Musser (1984)
, who also referenced changes in allocation of subfamily from
Myoxidae
to
Muridae
, and explained why platacanthomyines are not dormice. Closest relatives of
Platacanthomys
and
Typhlomys
are two species of
Neocometes
from European Miocene (
Carleton and Musser, 1984
), and a third species from Lower Miocene in N
Thailand
(
Mein et al., 1990
).
"
Platacanthomys
and
Typhlomys
,
although chracterized by many specialized features, appear to be relicts of an assemblage that is recognizable as platacanthomyine as far back as the early Miocene, a group that may have had its origins in some primitive and as yet unknown Eocene or Oligocene [muroid] stock, probably in Asia" (
Carleton and Musser, 1984:368
).