Pelomys fallax (Peters, 1852)

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 : 639

Pelomys fallax (Peters, 1852) . Bericht Verhandl. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 17:275.

TYPE LOCALITY: Mozambique, Caya Dist., Zambesi River and Boror, Licuare River .

DISTRIBUTION: S Kenya, SW Uganda, Tanzania, Zaire, Angola, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, E and NW Zimbabwe, and N Botswana.

SYNONYMS: australis , concolor , frater , insignatus, iridescens, luluae, rhodesiae, vumbae (see Allen, 1939; Meester et al., 1986).

COMMENTS: Appreciable variation in size and fur color exists between samples from Angola and Zambia and those from the rest of the geographic range of P. fallax , suggesting more than one species may be present in this complex.

No extant records are from South Africa but the species occurred in Natal more than 17,000 years before present when the region was covered with deciduous woodland instead of thornveld ( Avery, 1991).