Platacanthomyinae Alston, 1876

Guy G. Musser & Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 501-755 : 684

Subfamily Platacanthomyinae Alston, 1876 . Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1876:81.

COMMENTS: Diagnosis, general characteristics, and natural history provided by Carleton and Musser (1984), who also referenced changes in allocation of subfamily from Myoxidae to Muridae , and explained why platacanthomyines are not dormice. Closest relatives of Platacanthomys and Typhlomys are two species of Neocometes from European Miocene ( Carleton and Musser, 1984), and a third species from Lower Miocene in N Thailand ( Mein et al., 1990). " Platacanthomys and Typhlomys , although chracterized by many specialized features, appear to be relicts of an assemblage that is recognizable as platacanthomyine as far back as the early Miocene, a group that may have had its origins in some primitive and as yet unknown Eocene or Oligocene [muroid] stock, probably in Asia" ( Carleton and Musser, 1984:368).