Ricefield Rat – Rattus argentiventer

Rattus argentiventerRobinson and Kloss, 1916

Accepted name, Mammal Species of the World 2005

Rattus rattus species group. The incorrect historical association of argentiventer as a subspecies of Rattus rattus summarized by Musser (1973b). Judged by its close morphological alliance with species that Ellerman (1941) placed in subgenus Rattus, which are mostly mainland Asian in origin, and its peculiar Indo-australian geographic distribution that is discordant with ranges of endemic species, R. argentiventer was likely inadvertently introduced into the highly distinctive murine faunas of the Sunda Shelf, Philippines, Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara, and New Guinea from its Indochinese homeland, possibly with the spread of rice culture (Musser, 1973b; Musser and Holden, 1991; Musser and Newcomb, 1983; Taylor et al., 1982). Rattus hoxaensis from C Vietnam, described by Dao (1960), represents R. argentiventer (Musser’s identification of specimens in ZMVNU that Dao himself identified as hoxaensis); reasons fo... [truncated]

• Wilson, D and Reeder, D. (eds.) 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. 3rd ed. -- 2142 pp. Johns Hopkins University Press.