Chapter 1. They Sort Out Like Nuts and Bolts: A Scientific Biography of Guy G. Musser

Abstract

‘‘They sort out like nuts and bolts,’’ or similar wording, was an assertion that regularly arose in my conversations or correspondence with Guy over the past 40 years. The ‘‘they’’ in this statement are species of IndoAustralian rodents (Muroidea: Muridae: Murinae), a diverse and taxonomically complex Old World group that would dominate his research contributions and secure his professional reputation as one of the foremost systematic mammalogists of his generation. The statement carried an implicit comparative context: it referenced Guy’s formative experiences with a comparably complex group of New World rodents, deer mice of the genus Peromyscus (Muroidea: Cricetidae: Neotominae), research that comprised some of his earliest taxonomic works. The subtle features consulted to distinguish Peromyscus species served to sharpen his eye for specific discrimination whenever applied to other muroid genera investigated thereafter, particularly Rattus and kin.