The Florida naked-tailed rat (''Solomys salamonis'') is a poorly known and possible extinct 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 was confined to the
Nggela Islands (previously known as Florida Islands) in the
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...
. The originally mentioned type locality
Ugi Island
Ugi Island, also Uki Island (or Uki Ni Masi), is an island in Solomon Islands; it is located in Makira-Ulawa Province and lies 11 km north of Makira Island.
Geography
Ugi Island is a raised coral reef about 10.5 km long and 6.5 km ...
is an erratum.
[Flannery, T.F. (1995). Mammals of the South-West Pacific & Moluccan Islands. Chatswood: Reed Books, p. 165. ]
Description
The Florida naked-tailed rat is the smallest species within the genus Solomys. It has a snout-vent-length of 187 mm. The tail length is 194 mm, the hind food length is 39 mm and the ear length 27 mm.
The general colour of the fur is light ashy grey, somewhat grizzly, and pencilled with black. The base of the hair is mouse colour. The tips are almost white. The tail is bare and scaly. The blackish whiskers are long. The ears are small, inside grey, on the outside covered with minute hairs.
Conservation status
This species might be possibly extinct as it is only known by the holotype, an adult male, collected by Alexander Morton from the
Australian Museum
The Australian Museum is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. It is the oldest museum in Australia,Design 5, 2016, p.1 and the fifth oldest natural history museum in the ...
during the
HMS Cormorant expedition to the Solomon Islands in 1881.
[Troughton, E. Le G. (1936)]
''A redescription of Solomys ("Mus") salamonis Ramsay.''
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 61: pp. 128–130 Surveys in 1987 and in 1991 failed to find any specimens and the Nggela Islands are badly deforestated.
References
Further reading
*
External links
Solomys
Extinct animals of Oceania
Endemic fauna of the Solomon Islands
Mammals of the Solomon Islands
Rodents of Oceania
Rodent extinctions since 1500
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
Taxa named by Edward Pierson Ramsay
{{Murinae-stub