Madromys blanfordi (Thomas 1881)

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 1189-1531 : 1353

Madromys blanfordi (Thomas 1881)

[Mus] blanfordi Thomas 1881 , Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 5, 7: 24.

Type Locality: India, Madras, Kadapa.

Vernacular Names: Blanford's Madromys.

Distribution: Endemic to Sri Lanka and Peninsular India, from southern provinces north to Bihar in the east and near Bombay in the west ( Agrawal, 2000).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc) as Cremnomys blanfordi .

Discussion: Described as a species of Mus ( Thomas, 1881) , then allocated to Rattus ( Ellerman, 1941, 1961), blanfordi is phylogenetically distant from any species in that genus and is related to species in Cremnomys , a conclusion based on dental morphology ( Misonne, 1969) and chromosomal evidence ( Gadi and Sharma, 1983; Raman and Sharma, 1977; Rao and Lakhotia, 1972). See discussion in Madromys above. Chromosomal number and configuration of M. blanfordi very similar to that recorded for C. cutchicus and C. elvira ( Raman and Sharma, 1977) , but differing in amount of C-band-positive constitutive heterochromatin ( Sharma and Gadi, 1977). Ecology and occurrence in Western Ghats of S India documented by Chandrasekar-Rao and Sunquist (1996).