Bandicota indica (Bechstein, 1800)

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 : 579

Bandicota indica (Bechstein, 1800) . In Pennant, Allgemeine Ueber Vierfuss. Thiere, 2:497.

TYPE LOCALITY: India, Pondicherry .

DISTRIBUTION: Sri Lanka, peninsular India north to Nepal, NE India (Assam), Burma, S China (Yunnan and Hong Kong Isl), Taiwan, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. Introduced into Kedah and Perlis regions of Malay Peninsula ( Harrison, 1956; J. T. Marshall, Jr., 1977a) as well as Sumatra and Java ( Musser and Newcomb, 1983). Its spotty distribution may reflect other geographic introductions ( Taiwan for example); "since it is commensal, large, and delicious to eat, this bandicoot may have been spread by man in comparatively recent times" (J. T. Marshall, Jr., 1977a:428).

SYNONYMS: bandicota (of Bechstein, 1800; see Ellerman, 1941), elliotanus , eloquens , gigantea , jabouillei , kagii, macropus , malabarica , mordax , nemorivaga, perchai, setifera, siamensis , taiwanus.

COMMENTS: Morphologically more closely related to B. savilei than to B. bengalensis , but based on gel electrophoretic comparisons closer to Nesokia than to other species of Bandicota ( Radtke and Niethammer, 1984 /85). Chromosomal data for Thai samples provided by Markvong et al. (1973). A careful systematic revision is necessary to assess the significance of morphological and biochemical variation among samples. Pradhan et al. (1989), for example, argued that B. gigantea is specifically distinct from B. indica, and indicated they are pursuing a taxonomic revision of the genus.