Verhoeven's giant tree rat (''Papagomys theodorverhoeveni'') is an extinct rat of subfamily
Murinae
The Old World rats and mice, part of the subfamily Murinae in the family Muridae, comprise at least 519 species. Members of this subfamily are called murines. In terms of species richness, this subfamily is larger than all mammal families excep ...
that lived on
Flores
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including the Komodo Islands off its west coast (but excluding the Solor Archipelago to the east of Flores), the land area is 15,530.58 km2, and th ...
in
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 ...
.
It was judged to be extinct in 1996. However, experts believe that it died out before 1500 AD. The species is known only from several subfossil fragments. It was named after Dutch priest
Theodor Verhoeven Theodorus (Theo) Lambertus Verhoeven, SVD, (17 September 1907, Uden, The Netherlands – 3 June 1990, Antwerp, Belgium)
was a Dutch missionary and archaeologist who has become famous by his discovery of stone tools on the Indonesian island of ...
. A 1974 report of a recent specimen has been judged to represent ''
P. armandvillei'' instead.
References
Further reading
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Papagomys
Rats of Asia
Extinct rodents
Flores Island (Indonesia)
Rodents of Indonesia
Extinct animals of Indonesia
Extinct mammals of Asia
Holocene extinctions
Mammals described in 1981
Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN
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