Rattus macleari (Thomas, 1887)

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 : 655

Rattus macleari (Thomas, 1887) . Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1887:513.

TYPE LOCALITY: Christmas Isl ( Australia) .

DISTRIBUTION: Was endemic to Christmas Isl, 320 km south of Java in the Indian Ocean, but was thought to be extinct by 1908 ( Andrews, 1909) and is now considered extinct ( Flannery, 1990c).

COMMENTS: Ellerman (1941) first listed the species as the only member of " macleari " group in subgenus Rattus , then placed it and R. nativitatis in same group within subgenus Stenomys of Rattus ( Ellerman, 1949a). Chasen (1940) thought macleari to be nearest Sundamys muelleri , but in their comparisons, Musser and Newcomb (1983) found no support for this alliance. Misonne (1969) included macleari in subgenus Rattus. Sody (1941) proposed genus Christomys for macleari. In the original description, Thomas (1887c) indicated macleari to belong to a group that included celebensis, everetti, meyeri, and xanthurus; of these, only xanthurus resembled macleari ( Musser and Newcomb, 1983). Phylogenetic relationships remain unresolved, but Musser (1986) suggested macleari should be compared with a group of species that includes annandalei, enganus, korinchi, montanus, nativitatis, and xanthurus, all not part of subgenus Rattus, and distantly related to it.