Hoogerwerf's rat (''Rattus hoogerwerfi'') 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 n ...
in the family
Muridae. It is named after zoologist
Andries Hoogerwerf and is found only in western
Sumatra,
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 ...
, including
Mount Leuser
The Leuser Range or Leuser Massif, known as Mount Leuser is a group of three peaks, is the highest mountain in the Indonesian province of Aceh. The range lies to the south and west of the Alas River that flows east from the highlands of centra ...
, where it is found only above 2000 m.
It is known from few museum specimens. Genetic analysis indicate its closest relative is
Rattus korinchi, another Sumatran mountain rat from which it diverged around 1.4 million years ago.
[Miguel Camacho-Sanchez and Jennifer Leonard (2020) Mitogenomes reveal multiple colonization by ''Rattus'' in Sundaland. Journal of Heredity. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esaa014]
References
* Baillie, J. 1996.
Rattus hoogerwerfi 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 19 July 2007.
*
Rattus
Rats of Asia
Endemic fauna of Indonesia
Fauna of Sumatra
Rodents of Indonesia
Vulnerable fauna of Asia
Mammals described in 1939
Taxa named by Frederick Nutter Chasen
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
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