Christmas Island Rat
Rattus nativitatis (Thomas, 1889)
Also calledRat bulldog (fra) · joulusaarenrotta (fin) · krysa buldočí (ces) · Бульдоговая крыса (rus) · ミズベクマネズミ (jpn)
First described in: Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. vol.1888 p.533
Descriptions from checklists and floras indexed by GBIF
discussion
Discussion: Rattus species group unresolved. For Thomas (1888 b), the morphology of R. nativitatis distanced it from any other described species of Rattus. Ellerman (1941) first listed the species as the only member of the " nativitatis " group in subgenus Rattus, then placed it and R. macleari in same group within subgenus Stenomys of Rattus (Ellerman, 1949 a). Chasen (1940) thought R. nativitatis to be without close relatives in Malaysia, but Misonne (1969) placed it close to rajah in the subgenus Leopoldamys of Rattus, an allocation rejected by Musser (1981 b) and Musser and Newcomb (1983). Four hypotheses about phylogenetic position of R. nativitatis require testing: 1) it is most closely related to R. macleari, the other endemic on Christmas Isl; 2) it is not related to R. macleari but to other species of Rattus; 3) it is a member of Rattus but phylogenetically isolated from all other species; 4) it is not even a member of Rattus.
Order Rodentia - Family Muridae
distribution
Distribution: Endemic to Christmas Isl, 320 km south of Java in the Indian Ocean; suspected to be extinct by 1908 (Andrews, 1909) and is now considered extinct (Flannery, 1990 c).
Order Rodentia - Family Muridae
discussion
COMMENTS: For Thomas (1888 b), the morphology of R. nativitatis distanced it from any other described species of Rattus. Ellerman (1941) first listed the species as the only member of the " nativitatis " group in subgenus Rattus, then placed it and R. macleari in same group within subgenus Stenomys of Rattus (Ellerman, 1949 a). Chasen (1940) thought R. nativitatis to be without close relatives in Malaysia, but Misonne (1969) placed it close to rajah in the subgenus Leopoldamys of Rattus, an allocation rejected by Musser (1981 b) and Musser and Newcomb (1983). Three hypotheses about phylogenetic position of R. nativitatis require testing: 1. It is more closely related to R. macleari, the other endemic on Christmas Island than to any other species of Rattus; 2. It is not related to R. macleari but to other species in the genus or is phylogenetically isolated; 3. It is not even a member of Rattus.
Order Rodentia - Family Muridae
distribution
DISTRIBUTION: Endemic to Christmas Isl, 320 km south of Java in the Indian Ocean; suspected to be extinct by 1908 (Andrews, 1909) and is now considered extinct (Flannery, 1990 c).
Order Rodentia - Family Muridae
Where it has been recorded
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
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In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Rattus nativitatis in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
From the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and occurrence records (GBIF.org), with Wikipedia and the Source Library. GBIF species 2439273.