Manipur bush rat
The Manipur bush rat ("Hadromys humei"), also known as Hume's rat or Hume's hadromys, is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found in northeastern India, and is listed as endangered. Range and habitat. The species is endemic to northeast India, and has been recorded from several localities. These are: Angarakhata in Kamrup district (Assam), Bishnupur, Imphal, Senapati and Karong (specimen FMNH 76562) in Manipur. Originally thought to occur in Yunnan in China also, the Chinese animals have been reclassified as "Hadromys yunnanensis" Yang & Wang 1987. The fossil record shows that populations  of the Manipur Bush Rat existed all over Thailand right down to the Thai-Malay border during the Pleistocene. During that time, the Indo-Malayan region may have had a cooler and drier climate with savanna-like regions. A related species is known from the Siwalik fossils from northern Pakistan. These findings indicate that "Hadromys humei" is probably a "relict" species. The Manipur bush rat occurs at medium altitudes from above sea level. It inhabits tropical evergreen, moist deciduous and evergreen forests and also found in secondary forests in northeastern India. Discovery. The murid was described by Oldfield Thomas in  1886 from specimens in the Manipur collection of Allan Octavian Hume, which was donated to the British Museum (Natural History) after Hume's life's work in ornithological notes were sold by a servant as waste paper. The Manipur Bush Rat was named in his honour. The collection has two male and two female specimens, recorded to be collected on 23 March 1881 from "Moirang" (in Manipur), the type locality for this species. Description. The specimen has been described by Thomas (1886) as: The head and body length of the largest specimen, a female, was long while the tail is  long. Elsewhere, the head and body length has been given as head and body length as , the tail length as . The weight has been recorded as ranging from . Conservation status. The species has been given conservation status of "Endangered - B1ab(iii)+2ab(iii)" in IUCN Red List ver 3.1. The criteria for this assessment include: The principal threats to this species are assessed to be loss of and degradation of habitat, fragmentation, and encroachment. Besides these, hunting and fire are also considered to be contributing causes.