The Ethiopian forest brush-furred rat or golden-footed brush-furred rat (''Lophuromys chrysopus''), 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

Muridae The Muridae, or murids, are the largest family of rodents and of mammals, containing approximately 1,383 species, including many species of mice, rats, and gerbils found naturally throughout Eurasia, Africa, and Australia. The name Muridae come ...

. 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 ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

where 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 ...

is subtropical or tropical moist

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

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 ...

Description

This is a small rat with a head-and-body length of about and a tail of about . The blackish-brown dorsal fur is long, dense and somewhat stiff, each individual hair having a reddish-brown base, a broad black band, a narrower yellowish band and a black tip. The underparts are creamy-grey with dark speckles. The fore-feet have blackish hairs on top while those on the hind feet are greyish-red, the toes being black and the claws pale. The tail is bicoloured, the upper surface being clad with dark scales and blackish hairs, and the underside with pale scales and grey hairs with white tips. There is a difference in colour between populations on either side of the

Great Rift Valley The Great Rift Valley is a series of contiguous geographic trenches, approximately in total length, that runs from Lebanon in Asia to Mozambique in Southeast Africa. While the name continues in some usages, it is rarely used in geology as it i ...

; those to the east have a more intense, reddish-brown dorsal surface and yellower underparts. The

chromosome number Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respectively ...

is 2n = 54 which distinguishes it from the

short-tailed brush-furred rat The short-tailed brush-furred rat (''Lophuromys brevicaudus'') is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found only in Ethiopia. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical high-altitude shrubland and subtropical or tropical high- ...

(''Lophuromys brevicaudus'') where it is 2n = 68.

Distribution and habitat

The species is

to Ethiopia where there are two separate populations, separated by the Great Rift Valley. Its habitat is moist evergreen rainforest on the mountainsides and plateaus at altitudes ranging from .

Status

The Ethiopian forest brush-furred rat is one of the commonest rodents in the mountain forests of Ethiopia, only exceeded in total number by the

Ethiopian white-footed mouse The Ethiopian white-footed mouse or white-footed stenocephalemys (''Stenocephalemys albipes'') is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It lives in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Its natural habitats are tropical moist montane forest and tropical ...

, which inhabits shrubland as well as forest. It lives in the

Bale Mountains National Park Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP) is a national park in Ethiopia. The park encompasses an area of approximately in the Bale Mountains and Sanetti Plateau of the Ethiopian Highlands. The park's Afromontane habitats have one of the highest incid ...

where it is protected, but is elsewhere mainly threatened by the continual loss of forest cover. 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 ...

has assessed its conservation status as of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1769620 Endemic fauna of Ethiopia Lophuromys Mammals of Ethiopia Mammals described in 1936