Mus salamonis Ramsay 1882

Mus salamonis Ramsay, 1882a [not 1883]

Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. (ser. 1) 7(1): 43, plate 2. (23 May 1882).

Common name. Florida Naked-tailed rat.

Current name. Solomys salamonis (Ramsay, 1882a), following Musser & Carleton (2005).

? Holotype. A.11257 by subsequent determination (Troughton, 1936c). Male adult, skull (Fig. 41), body originally in alc., body evidently destroyed. The original register entry for locality is unambiguously given as “ Florida Isld S.” This was subsequently crossed out and replaced with Ugi Island, in handwriting consistent with that of Troughton. Collected by Alexander Morton, registered in December 1881. Collection date not recorded in register but probably between late April 1881 and June 10, 1881 (Lavery, 2014). Troughton (1936c) stated that the holotype skin had been lost long ago, but the AM A Register notes “Skin worthless—destroyed 24.xii.13” [= 1913], in what appears to be Troughton’s handwriting.

Condition. Cranium missing anterior part of both nasals, otherwise complete; both dentaries complete.

Type locality. Unresolved, either the Florida Island Group (Nggela Group), Central Province, or Ugi Island, Makira- Ulawa Province, Solomon Islands.

Comments. Known only from the original specimen (Flannery, 1995c). This taxon was redescribed by Troughton (1936c), who claimed to have relocated Ramsay’s original skull. He stated that “… careful examination of the “old collection” crania in the Museum resulted in discovery of the holotype skull, the identity of which is definitely established by comparisons with Ramsay’s illustrations”.

While it is clear that Ramsay’s original specimen was registered with the number A.11257 as indicated in the A Register, we do not share Troughton’s conviction that the skull he assigned to A.11257, at the time an unlabelled skull, is definitely Ramsay’s original specimen. There is no doubt that the registration number is correct and that cranial and dental measurements given by Ramsay broadly fit those of the skull assigned by Troughton, not withstanding the uncertainty of how Ramsay took some of his measurements. However, there are substantial differences in cranial morphology between the skull assigned by Troughton, and the illustrations accompanying Ramsay’s account— Ramsay’s illustrations show features more consistent with a species of Uromys (Cyromys), a subgenus restricted to the Solomon Islands (see Groves & Flannery, 1994), while the skull assigned by Troughton to A.11257 displays features of Solomys (e.g., Groves & Flannery, 1994). A detailed assessment of this issue will be presented elsewhere.

The incorrect citation of 1883 as year of publication of Mus salamonis Ramsay is entrenched in the literature, but Fletcher (1896) indicates that volume 7, part 1 was published in May 1882.Although Ramsay unambiguously gave the type locality as Ugi Island, this was amended anonymously to Florida Island in a separate erratum slip inserted into volume 7, part 2 (published August 1882); most recent authors since Laurie & Hill (1954) have accepted Florida Island as the type locality. Troughton forcefully contended that the holotype had been collected on Ugi Island, citing mention of a new Mus from Ugi in a published report on the collecting trip by Morton (1882) and this was accepted by Tate (1951b). We suspect that Troughton (1936c) was unaware of the erratum slip, which is not mentioned in his paper; we failed to find a copy in the AM. In his recent review, Lavery (2014) considered the evidence of the erratum slip and also summarized Morton’s itinerary in the Solomon Islands during 1882. Lavery concluded that the holotype was obtained from Ugi, primarily on the basis of Morton’s report, although he acknowledged the ambiguity of Morton’s account regarding the duration of their stay in the Florida group. In preparing this report, we uncovered another piece of relevant evidence—the original entry for A. 11257 in the A Register, made in December 1881, reads “ Mus sp nov Florida Isld”. The handwriting is most likely Ramsay’s (Ian McAllan, pers. comm. 2015). This was subsequently amended to Ugi by Troughton, presumably based on the title of Ramsay’s paper. Morton was present when Ramsay read his paper naming the taxon at the January 1882 meeting of the Linnean Society of NSW, so at that time, both men presumably concurred at that time that Ugi was the collecting locality, unless Morton, for whatever reason, was averse to contradicting Ramsay. We conclude that the type locality of this taxon remains unresolved; a detailed discussion will be presented in a separate paper on the putative holotype and its type locality.