Bannister's rat, or great Key Island mosaic-tailed rat, or great Key Island melomys or great Kai Island melomys (''Melomys bannisteri'') is a species of rodent of the genus

Melomys ''Melomys'' is a genus of rodents in the family Muridae. Members of this genus live in the wet habitats of northern Australia ( Far North Queensland), New Guinea, Torres Strait Islands and islands of the Indonesian archipelago. Species The ge ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the Kai Besar, one of the islands which are part of the

Maluku Islands The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located eas ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

References

Melomys Mammals of Indonesia Mammals described in 1993 Taxa named by Darrell Kitchener {{Murinae-stub