Bocage's African fat mouse (''Steatomys bocagei'') is an extant species of

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...

indigenous to

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

, the

Republic of the Congo The Republic of the Congo (french: République du Congo, ln, Republíki ya Kongó), also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply either Congo or the Congo, is a country located in the western coast of Central Africa to the w ...

, and the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

(DRC). Given the distribution of the species across the Angolan Plateau and south-west of the DRC throughout central Africa, the probability of a 'large population', and the security of its habitat, the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

(IUCN) recognises ''S. bocagei'' as stable. Whereas taxonomies early in the twentieth century posit ''S. bocagei'' as a species, more contemporary records from 1977 onwards identify it as indistinguishable from ''S. pratensis''. In 1998, however, Crawford-Cabral proposed that the additional pair of teats in ''S. bocagei'' required separation from ''S. pratensis''. Subsequent to Crawford-Cabral's publication, Wilson and Reader maintain in ''

Mammal Species of the World ''Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference'' is a standard reference work in mammalogy giving descriptions and bibliographic data for the known species of mammals. It is now in its third edition, published in late 2005, ...

'' that the size of these species also requires differentiation, where ''S. bocagei'' is significantly larger than ''S. pratensis'' and is unique or otherwise corresponds to ''S. opimus''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1768191 Mammals described in 1892 Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas Mammals of Angola Mammals of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Mammals of the Republic of the Congo Steatomys