Melomys burtoni
Creators: name: Musser, Guy G.
name: Carleton, Michael D.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 1993
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Rodentia
Muridae
Melomys
Melomys burtoni

description: <i>Melomys burtoni</i> (Ramsay, 1887). Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., ser. 2, 2:531. TYPE LOCALITY: Australia, Western Australia, near Derby. DISTRIBUTION: Australia; along the coast "from just south of the New South Wales-Queensland border, north to the tip of Cape York, and in coastal areas of the Northern Territory and north-eastern Western Australia " (Watts and Aslin, 1981:84); also found on many offshore islands, including those in Torres Strait. New Guinea; patchy distribution (grassland habitats) on both sides of Central Cordillera, near sea level to 2200m (see map in Flannery, 19906:231); also on Woodlark Isl in d'Entrecasteax Arch., and Misima Isl in Louisiade Arch. SYNONYMS: <i>albiventer, australius, callopes, frigicola, froggatti, hintoni, insulae, littoralis, lutillus, melicus, mixtus, murinus, muscalis.</i> COMMENTS: Results of chromosomal and electrophoretic studies reported by Baverstock et al. (1977 c, 1980, 1981, 19836). Anatomy of male reproductive tract and spermatozoal morphology presented by Breed and Sarafis (1978), Morrissey and Breed (1982), and Breed (1984, 1986). We follow Tate (1951) and Mahoney and Richardson (1988) in treating populations from Australian and New Guinea region as a single species, but the complex needs revision using data from morphological, chromosomal, and molecular sets to assess significance of the variation apparent both among samples from New Guinea and between those from New Guinea and Australia.
description: Published as part of <i>Guy G. Musser &amp; Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, pp. 501-755 in Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London :Smithsonian Institution Press</i> on page 615, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7353098
description: {"references": ["Watts, C. H. S., and H. J. Aslin. 1981. The rodents of Australia. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 321 pp.", "Baverstock, P. R., C. H. S. Watts, and J. T. Hogarth. 1977 c. Chromosome evolution in Australian rodents. I. The Pseudomyinae, the Hydromyinae and the Uromys / Melomys group. Chromosoma, 61: 95 - 125.", "Tate, C. M., J. F. Pagels, and C. O. Handley, Jr. 1980. Distribution and systematic relationship of two kinds of short-tailed shrews (Soricidae: Blarina) in south-central Virginia. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 93: 50 - 60.", "Breed, W. G., and V. Sarafis. 1978. On the phylogenetic significance of spermatozoal morphology and male reproductive tract anatomy in Australian rodents. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 103: 127 - 135.", "Morrissey, B. L., and W. G. Breed. 1982. Variation in external morphology of the glans penis of Australian native rodents. Australian Journal of Zoology, 30: 495 - 502.", "Breed, W. G. 1984. Sperm head structure in the Hydromyinae (Rodentia: Muridae): A further evolutionary development of the subacrosomal space in mammals. Gamete Research, 10: 31 - 44.", "Tate, G. H. H. 1951. Results of the Archbold Expeditions. No. 65. The rodents of Australia and New Guinea. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 97: 183 - 430.", "Mahoney, J. A., and B. J. Richardson. 1988. Muridae. Pp. 154 - 192, in Zoological catalogue of Australia. Mammalia (J. L. Bannister, et. al.). Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 5: 1 - 274."]}