A muroid rodent of Asian affinity from the Miocene of Kenya

Abstract

ABSTRACT A new genus and species, Nakalimys lavocati, is described from the Nakali locality, Kenya, of about 10 Ma. This muroid rodent is assigned to the Rhizomyidae and is most similar to Kanisamys indicus from the Miocene of Pakistan, with which it was originally considered congeneric. Nakalimys, with other rodents and vertebrates, points to interchange between eastern Africa and southern Asia earlier than 10 Ma, before a more recent period of strong faunal similarity at about the beginning of the Pliocene. Nakalimys possesses many primitive characters, but was not directly ancestral to fossil and extant Tachyoryctes of Africa.