Oenomys Temporal range: Late Pliocene to Recent | |
---|---|
Oenomys hypoxanthus | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Rodentia |
Family: | Muridae |
Tribe: | Arvicanthini |
Genus: | Oenomys Thomas, 1904 |
Type species | |
Mus hypoxanthus | |
Species | |
See text |
Oenomys is a genus of African rodents. Known as rufous-nosed rats or rusty-nosed rats, they occur from Sierra Leone east to Ethiopia and as far as south and northern Angola. The nose is reddish, or at least the cheeks, which suggested both the English and scientific names (oeno- means "wine-colored" and -mys denotes a mouselike animal).
Genus Oenomys - rufous-nosed rats
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 except the Cricetidae and Muridae, and is larger than all mammal orders except the bats and the remainder of the rodents.
The rodent subfamily Sigmodontinae includes New World rats and mice, with at least 376 species. Many authorities include the Neotominae and Tylomyinae as part of a larger definition of Sigmodontinae. When those genera are included, the species count numbers at least 508. Their distribution includes much of the New World, but the genera are predominantly South American, such as brucies. They invaded South America from Central America as part of the Great American Interchange near the end of the Miocene, about 5 million years ago. Sigmodontines proceeded to diversify explosively in the formerly isolated continent. They inhabit many of the same ecological niches that the Murinae occupy in the Old World.
The common rufous-nosed rat is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found in Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland and seasonally flooded agricultural land.
The Ghana rufous-nosed rat, also known as the West African Oenomys, is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found in Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland and seasonally flooded agricultural land, it has also been observed in secondary high forest habitat.
Arvicanthini is a tribe of muroid rodents in the subfamily Murinae. Almost all recent species in this tribe are or were found in Africa aside from one species, the Indian bush rat, which is found in South Asia and Iran. However, some fossil Golunda species from India and the genus Parapelomys are thought to have also occurred outside Africa, and one species in the fossil genus Saidomys may have also occurred in Afghanistan.