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| Morphology | Ecology and taphonomy | External Literature Search | Age range and collections |
Taxonomy
Saxatilomys was named by Musser et al. (2005). It is extant. Its type is Saxatilomys paulinae.
It was assigned to Murinae by Musser et al. (2005).
It was assigned to Murinae by Musser et al. (2005).
Species
S. paulinae (type species)
Synonymy list
| Year | Name and author |
|---|---|
| 2005 | Saxatilomys Musser et al. p. 6 |
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If no rank is listed, the taxon is considered an unranked clade in modern classifications. Ranks may be repeated or presented in the wrong order because authors working on different parts of the classification may disagree about how to rank taxa.
Diagnosis
| Reference | Diagnosis | |
|---|---|---|
| G. G. Musser et al. 2005 | A genus of Muridae in the
Dacnomys Division (Musser and Carleton, 2005) of the subfamily Murinae (as delimited by Carleton and Musser, 1984) that is set apart from all other described murid genera by the following combination of morpholog- ical traits: (1) fur covering head and body thick, semispinous, and dark gray with bur- nished highlights, underparts dark grayish white unbroken by any white patches, ears grayish brown; (2) dorsal surfaces of front and hind feet brownish gray; (3) tail appre- ciably longer than length of head and body, thin and tapered, round in cross section, dor- sal and lateral sides dark brown from base to tip, ventral surface white but lightly speckled with brown from the pigmented tail bristles; (4) palmar and plantar pads large, extremely bulbous, and set close together; (5) four pairs of mammae; (6) gracile skull with narrow (relative to broad braincase) and moderately long rostrum, wide zygomatic plate, promi- nent postorbital and temporal ridges, wide and low braincase, and deep occiput; (7) squamosal root of each zygomatic arch sit- uated high on the side of the cranium where it extends as a ridge diagonally to merge with the temporal ridge well anterior to the ver- tical squamosal-exoccipital suture (the pari- etal does not project ventrad to form part of the lateral braincase wall); (8) lateral cranial wall intact anterior to occiput, without large subsquamosal foramen; (9) alisphenoid struts in most specimens; (10) long and narrow in- cisive foramina, their posterior borders lo- cated just before anterior margins of molar rows or penetrating slightly between them; (11) maxillary molar rows that are long rel- ative to skull length and that diverge appre- ciably from anterior to posterior margins (along the anteroposterior axis); (12) wide and long bony palate projecting beyond mo- lar rows to form narrow platform with smooth posterior margin; (13) moderately spacious sphenopalatine vacuities; (14) wide and shallowly excavated pterygoid fossae; (15) small ectotympanic bulla relative to skull size, concealing most of periotic, so slanting posterodorsal wall of carotid canal formed by ectotympanic and not periotic; (16) large stapedial artery and no sphenof- rontal foramen or squamosoalisphenoid groove, indicators of a cephalic arterial pat- tern that is widespread among murines; (17) coronoid process of dentary small, condyloid and angular processes joined by moderately deeply concave posterior margin of dentary, and alveolar incisor capsule only slightly ev- ident on lateral dentary surface; (18) upper incisors opisthodont relative to rostrum; (19) first upper (maxillary) molar with five roots (anterior, posterior, two lingual, and single la- bial); (20) each lower (mandibular) molar with two roots (anterior and posterior); (21) molars brachydont, with cusp rows forming uncomplicated occlusal patterns resembling those in most species of Niviventer; and (22) anterolabial cusps prominent on second and third lower molars. |
Measurements
No measurements are available
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| Source: f = family, subc = subclass, c = class, subp = subphylum | |||||
| References: Ji et al. 2002, Nowak 1991, Hendy et al. 2009, Lillegraven 1979, Carroll 1988 | |||||