Large Mindoro Forest Mouse - Discovery and Taxonomy

Discovery and Taxonomy

In May and June 1992, an expedition to the Philippines was organised for the purpose of increasing the knowledge on their biodiversity. During this expedition, sixteen examples of a then unknown species of mouse were captured on Mount Halcon, on the island Mindoro. To this day, these animals, all captured between May 28 and June 12, 1992, remain the only known specimens of this species.

In 1995, in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, biologist Luis A. Ruedas described the animal as Apomys gracilirostris. At the time it was the ninth known species of the endemic Filipino genus Apomys, and the second found on Mindoro, after Apomys musculus (least forest mouse). The editors of a compilation work on the indigenous mammals of the Philippines accepted the animal as a new species in 1998.

A. gracilirostris was the first newly described Apomys since 1962, when Apomys sacobianus (long-nosed Luzon forest mouse) was described. However, it was far from being the only new species discovered in the Philippines. Several new rodents had already been discovered in the eighties, one of which was actually from Mindoro as well (Anonymomys mindorensis or Mindoro climbing rat). A constant supply of new species remained in the years after the description of A. gracilirostris. In ten years time, eight new mammal species were added to the list. In 2006, another new Apomys was described: Apomys camiguinensis (Camiguin forest mouse). Apomys also comprises several species which are yet undescribed, two of which are from Mindoro. Another species from Mindoro, from the predominantly Indonesian genus Maxomys, has yet to receive its scientific name.

In accordance with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the name Apomys gracilirostris is a binomen. The generic name, Apomys was proposed by American biologist Edgar Mearns in 1905 and has the meaning of "mouse from Mount Apo" (mys, μῦς, being the Ancient Greek word for "mouse"); this because the type species of the genus was first found on Mount Apo. The specific name, gracilirostris, is a combination of the Latin words gracilis "slender" and rostrum "snout" and refers to the animal's long, slender snout.