These photos are a few years old, I’ve been meaning to ask for ID confirmation/help on them.
This was suggested to be Niviventer fulvescens, from Pangandaran NP, Java,any thoughts?
Is this just a Norway Rat? Way Kembas, Sumatra
I’ve never even guessed what this one is, Baluran NP, Java.
Any help is much appreciated, Thanks,
Curtis
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Genetically Welsh, spiritually Australian, currently in New York City. I've also lived and worked in London, Canberra, Paris and Lusaka, and visited over 100 countries. There's more here.
The first one sure looks like a Niviventer, but I don’t remember how to tell N. lepturus from N. fulvescens. What was the elevation?
The second one is too long-tailed for Rattus norvegicus. I’d say R. tiomanicus.
The third one could be Pitecheir melanurus, I guess. Do you remember how big it was and how long the tail was?
The first one was basically at sea level.
I thought the second looked a little off, and it was a long ways from anything but 3 buildings in the jungle.
The third was maybe 6″ head and body length.
What do you use as a resource for looking up Indonesian rats?
I don’t have any resource at the moment, just memory, that’s the problem 🙂 I think N. fulvescens is the one to be expected at low elevations, but I might be wrong. 6″ is within range for Pithecheir, but I just googled P. melanurus and it appears to be a very rare species.
What are the books you would use? I haven’t even been able to find a species list for Java.
You can start by compiling a list from, say, Walker’s Mammals of the World (be sure to get the last edition). There are field guides to mammals of Borneo and southeast Asia; if you combine them, you’ll have only Javan endemics left – look them up one by one online.
That’ll be quite the project to start on when I get back to my references. Thanks for the help and the suggestion. For some reason, I never think of using Mammals of Borneo, even though it is quite close..
Curtis, the third one looks like it might be Rattus tiomanicus. They do climb and we caught several in Sumatra.