Delany's mouse or Delany's swamp mouse (''Delanymys brooksi'') is a 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 ...

in the family

Nesomyidae The Nesomyidae are a family of African rodents in the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. It includes several subfamilies, all of which are native to either continental Africa or to Madagascar. Included in this family are Malagasy rodents, ...

. It is the only species in the genus ''Delanymys'' and the only extant member of subfamily Delanymyinae, which also contains the fossil genus '' Stenodontomys''. It was previously placed in subfamily

Petromyscinae ''Petromyscus'' is a genus of rodent in the family Nesomyidae. It is so distinct from other rodents that it is placed as the only genus in subfamily Petromyscinae. In previous classifications, '' Delanymys brooksi'' has also been placed in the s ...

, but it is apparently not closely related to ''Petromyscus''. It is found in

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 ...

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

, and

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are subtropical or tropical high-altitude

shrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It m ...

and

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s. It is threatened by

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

Classification

In 2013, a robust muroid phylogeny found ''Delanymys'' sister to ''Mystromys'' + ''Petromyscus'', reviving the affinity of ''Delanymys'' to petromyscines, in addition to ''Mystromys'' (Mystromyinae). Conventionally, all three genera have been placed in their own subfamily; a scheme that creates redundant, non-informative monogeneric subfamilies with respect to extant taxa. More broadly, the clade ''Delanymys'' belongs to (''Delanymys'' + (''Mystromys'' + ''Petromyscus'')) was sister to Dendromurinae (''Steatomys'' + (''Dendromus'' + ''Malacothrix'')) and Cricetomyinae (''Saccostomus'' + (''Beamys'' + ''Cricetomys'')).

References

*Musser, G. G. and M. D. Carleton. 2005. Superfamily Muroidea. pp. 894–1531 ''in'' Mammal Species of the World a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder eds. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. *Schenk, J. J., Rowe, K. C. & Steppan, S. J. 2013. Ecological opportunity and incumbency in the diversification of repeated continental colonizations by muroid rodents. Systematic Biology 62, 837–864. Nesomyid rodents Rodents of Africa Mammals described in 1962 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{muroid-stub