Rhizomys Gray 1831

Rhizomys Gray 1831, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1831: 95.

Type Species: Rhizomys sinensis Gray 1831

Synonyms: Brachyrhizomys Teilhard de Chardin 1942; Nyctocleptes Temminck 1832 .

Species and subspecies: 3 species:

Species Rhizomys pruinosus Blyth 1851

Species Rhizomys sinensis Gray 1831

Species Rhizomys sumatrensis (Raffles 1821)

Discussion: Anatomy of gastrointestinal tract and comparisons with other muroids provided by Vorontsov (1979); cranium and dentition figured by Ellerman (1940). Evolutionary history extends back to the very late Miocene (5.7 million years ago) in China (Flynn, 1993). The extinct Chinese shansius, the genotype of Brachyrhizomys, is regarded as a species of Rhizomys with Brachyrhizomys conserved as a subgenus (Flynn, 1990, 1993). Other extinct Pakistan and Indian species formally allocated to Brachyrhizomys (Flynn, 1982 a, b) are rhizomyines, not tachyoryctines, that are morphologically more closely related to Rhizomys than to Cannomys and lack a generic name (Flynn, 1990).