Oryzomys albiventer
| Oryzomys albiventer | |
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| Drawing of Oryzomys molestus, a synonym of Oryzomys albiventer. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Rodentia |
| Family: | Cricetidae |
| Genus: | Oryzomys |
| Species: | O. albiventer |
| Binomial name | |
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Oryzomys albiventer Merriam, 1901 |
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| Distribution of Oryzomys albiventer (in pink) and other western Mexican Oryzomys. | |
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Oryzomys albiventer is a rodent in the genus Oryzomys of family Cricetidae from interior western Mexico, in the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato, and Michoacán. First described in 1901 as a separate species, it was later lumped under O. couesi and the marsh rice rat (O. palustris) until it was reinstated as a species in 2009. It differs from neighboring Oryzomys populations in size and measurements and is a large, brightly colored species with a long tail and robust skull and molars. Its range has been much impacted by agricultural development, but isolated populations are thought to persist.
Oryzomys albiventer was first described by C.H. Merriam in 1901 on the basis of ten specimens from Ameca, Jalisco. He named the animal albiventer after the white color of its underparts and considered it most closely related to Oryzomys aquaticus (currently included in Oryzomys couesi). Two years later, D.G. Eliot described Oryzomys molestus on the basis of a single individual from Ocotlán, Jalisco; the name molestus means "troublesome, irksome". Eliot considered Oryzomys fulgens, another current synonym of O. couesi, as the closest relative of his new species. In his 1918 review of North American Oryzomys, E.A. Goldman assessed the holotype of O. molestus, an old male, as merely a large example of albiventer, and reduced albiventer to one of many subspecies of O. couesi. He considered it closely related to three other highland Mexican forms. In 1960, E.R. Hall argued that O. couesi was the same species as the marsh rice rat (O. palustris) of the United States, and listed albiventer as a subspecies of the latter. Later, O. couesi was again accepted as separate from the marsh rice rat, but O. albiventer was still classified under O. couesi.
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