A specimen of the murid rodent Nesokia indica has been recovered from a late Paleolithic archeological site in the Sudan. This is a range 1200 km south of the site of any known occurrences, and it indicates a different environment near the Nile River than that which exists at the present time. The late Paleolithic water table is inferred to have been more stable, allowing for permanent moist soil.

Time calibration derived from the fossil record is essential for molecular phylogenetic and evolutionary studies. Fossil mice and rats, discovered in the Siwalik Group of Pakistan, have served as one of the best-known fossil calibration points in molecular phylogenic studies. Although these fossils have been widely used as the 12 Ma date for the Mus/Rattus split or a more basal split, conclusiv...

Karyotypes and information pertinent to genetic mapping of small mammals in remote areas of Southeast Asia are practically nonexistent. The diverse island complex of the Indo-Australian archipelago offers a unique situation to study the interrelationships of the taxonomically confused order Rodentia. Yosida (1969, 1971, 1973) reported karyotypes of two species of rodents from Makassar, located ...

The hypothesis of a Palaearctic origin of Leishmania in the early Cenozoic, dispersal to the Nearctic in the late Eocene and to the Neotropical in the Pliocene is presented. It is further hypothesized that murid rodents and their immediate ancestors have been important mammalian reservoirs since the origination of Leishmania. Biochemical, molecular, biogeographical, entomological, mammalalogica...

There are 25 species of rats and mice (familly Muridae) in peninsular Malaysia (Medway 1978). Of these the karyotypes of 19 species have been described (Yong 1968, 1969 and 1973). The chromosomes of the other 6 species found in this country have, however, not been reported. Of these 6 species, the chromosomes of Hapalomys and Pithecheir have also not been reported from other countries. The pres...

We report period response curves (tauRC) for two nocturnal Murid species from India, Mus booduga and Mus platythrix. We further discuss the method of phase shift estimation in the presence of tau-changes, because such changes pose a serious methodological problem in the estimation of phase shifts. Although the tauRC indicates that most of the phase shifts are associated with small changes in ta...