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 Uromys (Uromys) caudimaculatus Krefft 1867 Uromys (Uromys) caudimaculatus Krefft 1867 , Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1867: 316 . Type Locality: Australia , Queensland , Cape York (see Mahoney and Richardson, 1988 ). Vernacular Names: Giant White-tailed Uromys . Synonyms: Uromys (Uromys) aruensis Gray 1873 ; Uromys (Uromys) ductor Thomas 1913 ; Uromys (Uromys) exilis Troughton and Le Soeuf 1929 ; Uromys (Uromys) lamington Troughton 1937 ; Uromys (Uromys) multiplicatus (Jentink 1907) ; Uromys (Uromys) nero Thomas 1913 ; Uromys (Uromys) papuanus (Ramsay 1883) ; Uromys (Uromys) prolixus Thomas 1913 ; Uromys (Uromys) scaphax Thomas 1913 ; Uromys (Uromys) sherrini Thomas 1923 ; Uromys (Uromys) validus Peters and Doria 1881 ; Uromys (Uromys) waigeuensis Frechkop 1932 . Distribution: Australia : NE coastal Queensland in tropical forests from Townsville area north to tip of Cape York, and a few islands off the coast of N Queensland (Moore, 1995:640; Watts and Aslin, 1981:91 ). New Guinea : widespread throughout lowland and midmontane regions on the mainland, sea level to 1925 m ; also on Aru Isls, Kai Isls, Waigeo Isl, Yapen Isl, and Normanby and Fergusson in the D’Entrecasteaux Arch. (Flannery, 1995 a , b ; Leary and Seri, 1997 ). Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc). Discussion: Subgenus Uromys . The Australian population has been studied from viewpoints of chromosomal morphology ( Baverstock et al., 1977 c ), heterochromatin variation ( Baverstock et al., 1976 b , 1982), electrophoretic data ( Baverstock et al., 1981 ), G-banding homologies ( Baverstock et al., 1983 b ), morphology of male reproductive tract (Breed, 1986), and spermatozoal structure ( Breed, 1984 ; Breed and Sarafis, 1978 ). Donnellan (1987) provided chromosomal information for samples from New Guinea , Breed and Aplin (1994) reported spermatozoal morphology, and Lidicker (1968) described phallic anatomy. Morphology of gastrointestinal tract and its significance covered by Comport and Hume (1998) . Mahoney and Richardson (1988:189) cataloged taxonomic, distributional, and biological references covering Australian populations. Two different chromosomal forms of Australian U. caudimaculatus exist, one extending from McIlwraith Ranges northward, the other from Cooktown southward; they are separated by a 200 km break in rainforest ( Baverstock et al., 1976 b , 1977 c ; Donnellan, 1989). Significance of morphological variation among samples from mainland New Guinea assessed in the context of a systematic revision of Uromys ( Groves and Flannery, 1994 ) , but their results should be tested by new analyses. The taxa nero and scaphax , for example, which were treated as synonyms of U. caudimaculatus multiplicatus by Groves and Flannery (1994:153) , are in K. Helgen’s (in litt., 2004; he has recently studied holotypes and other specimens at the BMNH ) "... assessment extremely distinctive and represent biological species not immediately allied to caudimaculatus ... ." Australian populations reviewed by Moore (1995), New Guinea by Flannery (1995 a , b ). Aplin et al. (1998) reported material of this species from a late Pleistocene archaeological site on the Ayamaru Plateau, central Bird’s Head Peninsula of Prov. of Papua (= Irian Jaya).