Description and Natural History
This is a rather small (head and body = 60 mm) mouse with a fairly long (~100 mm) tail. The hair is short, soft, brown, and generally shrew-like. Ears are small and round. The upper incisors are narrow, ungrooved, orange, and short. The lower incisors project forward (proodont) and are sharply pointed (Denys et al., 2006; Nowak, 1999).
Denys et al. (2006) note that the coronoid process on the mandible is reduced and that the animal appears to have the ability to push its lower jaw (and thereby its incisors) strongly forward. They suggest that Dollman's Tree Mouse uses this feature to dig its burrow with its lower incisors.
Prionomys appears to feed almost exclusively on certain species of ants, particularly Tetramorium aculeatum (Denys et al., 2006). Denys et al. (2006) suggest that this unusual diet may be part of the reason that so few individuals have been captured for study. Sherman live traps baited with vegetable-derived matter may not attract this species to the same degree that it does other small rodents. In many ways Prionomys is more shrew-like in its habits. Individuals have only been obtained in pitfall traps, captured by hand, or obtained from local hunters.
Dollman's Tree Mouse is nocturnal and arboreal. Nowak (1999) suggests that the naked tip of its tail might be prehensile.
Read more about this topic: Dollman's Tree Mouse
Famous quotes containing the words description, natural and/or history:
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The Royal Navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of the island.”
—William Blackstone (1723–1780)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)