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

description: <i>Rattus turkestanicus</i> (Satunin, 1903). Ann. Mus. Zool. Acad. Imp. Sci. St. Petersbourg, 7:588. TYPE LOCALITY: Kirghizia, Oshskaya Obi., Lenniskii p-h, Arslanbob (= "Assam-bob"; see Pavlinov and Rossolimo, 1987). DISTRIBUTION: Records are from Kirghizia, NE Iran, N and E Afghanistan, N Pakistan, N India (Kashmir, Sikkim), Nepal, and S China (Yunnan and Guangdong) (see Musser and Newcomb, 1985:15). SYNONYMS: <i>celsus, gilgitianus, khumbuensis, rattoides</i> (Hodgson, 1845, not Pictet and Pictet, 1844), <i>shigarus, vicerex</i> (see Corbet, 1978c; Musser and Newcomb, 1985). COMMENTS: Despite continued use of <i>rattoides</i> for this complex (Caldarini et al., 1989; Corbet, 1978c), it is a synonym of <i>R. rattus</i> (Schütter and Thonglongya, 1971). Three distinctive morphological, chromosomal, and geographic forms are included under <i>turkestanicus</i> (Caldarini et al., 1989; Niethammer and Martens, 1975) and were first recognized by Hinton (1922) who treated all three as species <i>(R. turkestanicus, R. vicerex,</i> and <i>R. rattoides)</i> but also suggested that each may instead be a welldifferentiated subspecies. <i>Rattus turkestanicus</i> and <i>R. vicerex</i> were reported to occur sympatrically in Kashmir (Chakraborty, 1983), but those identifications have to be verified. A careful systematic treatment is needed to determine whether the three groups represent species or geographic variants. Oldest name for the complex is <i>pyctoris</i> (Hodgson, 1845; incorrectly listed as a synonym of <i>R. nitidus</i> by Ellerman, 1961) and would either replace <i>turkestanicus</i> if all samples represent a single species, or would identify Nepal and Sikkim populations.
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 661-662, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7353098
description: {"references": ["Pavlinov, I. Ya., and O. L. Rossolimo. 1987. Sistematika mlekopitayushchikh SSSR [Systematics of the mammals of the USSR.]. Moscow University Press, Moscow, 282 pp. (in Russian).", "Musser, G. G., and C. Newcomb. 1985. Definitions of Indochinese Rattus losea and a new species from Vietnam. American Museum Novitates, 1814: 1 - 32.", "Hodgson, B. H. 1845. On the rats, mice, and shrews of the central region of Nepal. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, [ser. 1], 15: 266 - 270.", "Corbet, G. B. 1978 c. The mammals of the Palaearctic region: A taxonomic review. British Museum (Natural History), London, 314 pp.", "Caldarini, G., E. Capanna, M. V. Civitelli, M. Corti, and A. Simonetta. 1989. Chromosomal evolution in the subgenus Rattus (Rodentia, Muridae): Karyotype analysis of two species from the Indian subregion. Mammalia, 53: 77 - 83.", "Niethammer, J., and J. Martens. 1975. Die Gattungen Rattus und Maxomys in Afghanistan und Nepal. Zeitschrift fur Saugetierkunde, 40: 325 - 355.", "Hinton, M. A. C. 1922. Scientific results from the mammal survey. No. 34. The house rats of Nepal. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 28: 1056 - 1066.", "Chakraborty, S. 1983. Contribution to the knowledge of the mammalian fauna of Jammu and Kashmir, India. Records of the Zoological Survey of India, 38: 1 - 129.", "Ellerman, J. R. 1961. Rodentia. Volume 3, in The fauna of India including Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon. Mammalia. Second ed. Manager of Publications, Zoological Survey of India, Calcutta, vol. 3 (in 2 parts), 1: 1 - 482; 2: 483 - 884."]}