Rattus browni praecelsus Troughton, 1937a

Parnaby, Harry E., Ingleby, Sandy & Divljan, Anja, 2017, Type Specimens of Non-fossil Mammals in the Australian Museum, Sydney, Records of the Australian Museum 69 (5), pp. 277-420 : 373

Rattus browni praecelsus Troughton, 1937a

Rec. Aust. Mus. 20(2): 121. (27 August 1937).

Common name. Pacific Rat.

Current name. Rattus exulans browni ( Alston, 1877) , following Taylor et al. (1982) and Musser & Carleton (2005).

Holotype. M.6110 by original designation.Adult male, skull, study skin, collected and presented by Dr G. A. M. Heydon, registered 22 May 1936, collection date not given.

Condition. Cranium complete; left dentary missing coronoid process, right dentary missing angular process. Study skin: in good condition but patch of skin missing from lower abdominal area when skin was prepared.

Type locality. “ The upper Wahgi River valley, about 15 miles south-east of Mt Hagen, alt. 5–6,000 ft. ” (Troughton), Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea .

Paratypes. (2, by subsequent determination). M.6111, subadult male, skull, study skin; and M.6112, young female, skull, study skin, both with same locality, collector and registration date as holotype.

Referred specimens. Seven specimens collected by J. L. Taylor in 1933, from Mt Hagen, alt. 5600 feet, all except M.5628 are damaged study skins: M.5622, adult female, skin with skull in situ; M.5623, subadult male, skin with skull in situ; M.5624, indeterminate sex, damaged skin with skull in situ; M.5625, adult female, skin with skull in situ; M.5626, subadult male, skin with skull in situ; M.5627, indeterminate sex, damaged skin, skull in situ; M.5628, subadult, sex indeterminate, skull, study skin.

Comments. Troughton gave the registration number only for the holotype and did not refer to the existence of paratypes. Two specimens (M.6111 and M.6112), both collected at the same time as the holotype and from the type locality, are marked as paratypes in Troughton’s handwriting on the study skin tags and the type card index (although not in the register) and we recognize both as paratypes. He referred to a series of specimens collected by J. Taylor, but cited neither the total number of specimens in the series nor their registration numbers. Seven specimens listed above were collected by J. Taylor from the vicinity of Mt Hagen and are identified in the register and on specimen index cards as browni praecelsus in Troughton’s handwriting and some or all of these probably represent Troughton’s “series” collected by Taylor. Other than M.5628, all are study skins in poor condition, apparently crudely prepared in the field, and we treat these as referred specimens .