Sulawesi Rodents: Description of a New Genus and Species of Murinae (Muridae, Rodentia) and Its Parasitic New Species of Sucking Louse (Insecta, Anoplura)

Abstract

Abstract The murine rodent, Sommeromys macrorhinos, new genus and species, is described from a single specimen collected at 2400 m near the summit of Gunung Tokala in central Sulawesi. The species is insectivorous and a member of the tropical upper montane rain forest fauna of the island. With its small body, elongate rostrum, long and slender hind feet, very long tail, and brownish gray fur, S. macrorhinos superficially resembles the long-tailed and small-bodied shrew rat, Tateomys macrocercus, another Sulawesian upper montane forest endemic. Sommeromys macrorhinos, however, possesses a combination of derived external, cranial, and dental traits, along with a unique rostral shape, that dissassociates it from any relationship with not only T. macrocercus and its close allies T. rhinogradoides and Melasmothrix naso, but with also the large-bodied shrew rats of Sulawesi (Echiothrix) and those indigenous to the Philippines (Archboldomys, Rhyncomys, Chrotomys, and Celaenomys) and New Guinea (Neohydromys, Pseu...