Tachyoryctes Ruppell 1835
Creators: name: Musser, Guy G.
name: Carleton, Michael D.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 1993
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Rodentia
Muridae
Tachyoryctes

description: <i>Tachyoryctes</i> Rüppell, 1835. Neue wirbelth. Fauna Abyssin. Gehörig., Säugeth., 1:35, footnote. TYPE SPECIES: <i>Bathyergus splendens</i> Rüppell, 1835. SYNONYMS: <i>Chrysomys.</i> COMMENTS: Hollister (1919:40) listed eight species of <i>Tachyoryctes,</i> noting that "all have constant characters of differentiation, and intergradation between any two of them is not indicated by this material," and speculated that the "numerous forms will doubtlessly be connected by complete chains of intergrades and the final monographer of the genus will be obliged to reduce many of the named forms to the rank of subspecies." Allen (1939) and Ellerman (1941) listed 14 species of <i>Tachyoryctes,</i> but these were reduced to T. <i>macrocephalus</i> and T. <i>splendens</i> by Misonne (1974) who was followed by Corbet and Hill (1991). Of the twenty forms described, Rahm (1980) considered about 16 of them to be valid subspecies of T. <i>splendens.</i> This change from 14 to 2 species was not based on careful analyses of morphological variation characterizing the named forms. Aside from Bekele's (1986) inconclusive univariate analyses of craniometric data from samples of <i>Tachyoryctes,</i> no assessment of morphological variation in the genus is available in context of a systematic revision. Until such a study provides documentation and definition of specific limits and their geographic distributions, we return to a modifed treatment of the arrangement by Allen (1939) and Ellerman (1941), which reflects the diagnostic information now available.
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 pages 685-686, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7353098
description: {"references": ["Hollister, N. 1919. East African mammals in the United States National Museum. Part II. Rodentia, Lagomorpha, and Tubulidentata. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, 99 (2): 1 - 184.", "Allen, G. M. 1939. A checklist of African mammals. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, 83: 1 - 763.", "Ellerman, J. R. 1941. The families and genera of living rodents. Vol. II. Family Muridae. British Museum (Natural History), London, 690 pp.", "Misonne, X. 1974. Order Rodentia. Part 6. Pp. 1 - 39, in The mammals of Africa: An identification manual (J. Meester and H. W. Setzer, eds.). [issued 10 Sep 1974]. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C., not continuously paginated.", "Corbet, G. B., and J. E. Hill. 1991. A world list of mammalian species. Third ed. British Museum (Natural History) Publications, London, 243 pp.", "Rahm, U. 1980. Die afrikanische Wurzelratte, Tachyoryctes. Die Neue Brehm-Bucherei, 528: 1 - 60.", "Bekele, A. 1986. The status of some mole-rats of the genus Tachyoryctes (Rodentia: Rhizomyidae) based upon craniometric studies. Revue de Zoologie Africaine, 99: 411 - 417."]}