Girish Mahajan (Editor)

White tipped tufted tailed rat

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Kingdom
  
Order
  
Subfamily
  
Scientific name
  
Eliurus penicillatus

Rank
  
Species

Phylum
  
Chordata

Family
  
Genus
  
Eliurus

Higher classification
  
Eliurus

White-tipped tufted-tailed rat httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

Similar
  
Webb's tufted‑tailed rat, Major's tufted‑tailed rat, Grandidier's tufted‑tailed rat, Tanala tufted‑tailed rat, Gregarious short‑tailed rat

The white-tipped tufted-tailed rat (Eliurus penicillatus) is a rodent endemic to Madagascar. It is known from only two specimens, one collected from Ampitambe forest in 1895 or 1896 and the second in 2000. It is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as an endangered species due to habitat loss.

Contents

Taxonomy

The type specimen was collected in 1895 or 1896 and described by British zoologist Oldfield Thomas in 1908. It has been considered to be a specimen of Major's tufted-tailed rat (Eliurus majori) but new information confirmed the original identification. This species differs from E. majori by its white-tipped caudal tuft.

Habitat and distribution

Little is known about the white-tipped tufted-tailed rat because it is known from only two specimens. The first was collected in 1895 or 1896 from the Ampitambe forest, near Ambositra in Fianarantsoa Province and a second 35 km (21.7 mi) north-east of Fandriana in the Fandriana–Marolambo corridor in 2000. Both specimens were collected from montane humid forest at an altitude ranging from 900 to 1,670 m (2,952.8 to 5,479.0 ft). It has not been found during surveys in areas to the north and south of its known range.

Status

This species has not been recorded from protected areas. It is thought that it could be threatened by the fragmentation of its humid forest habitat to cultivated land, and it is possible that all species of the Nesomlyinae family suffer from a plague carried by introduced rodents. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified the conservation status of this bird as ″endangered ″ because its area of habitation is thought to be less than 5,000 km2 (1,931 sq mi).

References

White-tipped tufted-tailed rat Wikipedia


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