Hapalotis caudimaculata Krefft, 1867b

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 : 354

Hapalotis caudimaculata Krefft, 1867b

Proc.Zool. Soc.Lond. 1867: 316, figs 1–7. (22 October 1867).

Common name. Giant White-tailed Rat.

Current name. Uromys caudimaculatus caudimaculatus ( Krefft, 1867b) , following Jackson & Groves (2015).

Syntype. S.1848 by subsequent determination. Unsexed, cranium without dentaries ( Fig. 32 ), registered from the “old collection” on 21 August 1929. The S Register entry, most likely in Troughton’s hand, for S.1848 states “Skin nil” and the Remarks column states “Skull only discovered unregistered. Absence of an upper incisor + injury to basisphenoid suggest this is the skull of the type of Hapalotis caudimaculata figd in Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867 p. 317, fig. 1–7” .

Condition. Cranium missing upper right incisor, hole in the left side of the basisphenoid.

Cranial measurements (mm). S.1848: GL, 69.45; ConL, 66.96; BasL, 63.31; NasL, 24.89; NasB, 6.92; DIL, 20.60; APV, 7.76; PPV, 1.41; PAL, 40.27; UMR (alv.), 12.87; ZB, 36.95; POC, 11.62; MB, 22.31.

? Syntypes. (4). PA.88, sex not recorded, skin mount, not sighted; PA.89, sex not recorded, skull, skin mount; PA.90, sex not recorded, skin mount, unclear if skull in situ, and PA.91, male, study skin, uncertain if skull in situ. All were originally entered in the Palmer Register c. 1878 as “ Hapalotis caudimaculata, Cape York ”, with “Krefft” given as the presenter against PA.89.

Type locality. Cape York, north Qld, Australia.

Comments. Krefft indicates in his original account that he had purchased “several” specimens a “few months earlier”. His description was evidently based on several skins and one complete skull. He provides external measurements for “one of the dried skins” and notes that the molars are very worn in the skull he described. The alleged syntype S.1848 has damage to the presphenoid bone resembling that seen in the skull illustrated in fig. 3 of Krefft’s original description. However that illustration depicts a relatively broader skull than S.1848, with shorter nasals that do not extend posteriorly to contact the frontal suture. Krefft does not provide skull or dental dimensions for his specimen. We suspected that PA.88–PA.91 might be syntypes, before we became aware of the unpublished manuscript of Troughton (1956), who had reached the same conclusion. However, we cannot exclude the possibility that one or more of the latter specimens might have been obtained by Krefft after publication of his account. Mus macropus Gray, 1866b is a primary homonym, and thus the first available name for the species is Hapalotis caudimaculata Krefft, 1867b (see Groves & Flannery 1994).

Figures

Figure 32. Cranium of AM S.1848, syntype of Hapalotis caudimaculata Krefft, 1867b. (Photography by Sally Cowan).