Lemniscomys striatus ( Linnaeus, 1758 )

Denys, Christiane, Missoup, Alain Didier, Nicolas, Violaine, Sylla, Morlaye, Douno, Mory, Kadjo, Blaise, Lalis, Aude & Monadjem, Ara, 2025, Annotated checklist of rodents from a biodiversity hotspot, Mount Nimba (West Africa), Zoosystema 47 (27), pp. 617-689 : 641-642

Lemniscomys striatus ( Linnaeus, 1758)

Mus striatus Linnaeus, 1758: 62 .

Lemniscomys striatus – Trouessart 1881: 124.

REMARKS

On Mount Nimba the newly collected Lemniscomys specimens were barcoded and belong unambiguously to L. striatus . One specimen of the Guinean Nimba provided the typical L. striatus karyotype.

The striation pattern of its pelage and the standard karyotype or the Guinean Nimba new specimen (MNHN-ZM-2021-1696, 2 N= 45) allow to attribute it unambiguously to L. striatus (2 N= 44-45). The two new Liberian specimens (MNHN-ZM-2014-978 and 2014-979) were molecularly typed and matched well with L. striatus . They display the brown colour of the pelage, yellow white spots, eight bands of brown spots alternating with yellow cream ones that characterize L. striatus ( Denys et al. 2020) . The standard measurements of the New Nimba specimens of L. striatus fit well with the proportions of the specimens of the Lamotte collections and other Guinean specimens ( Table 7 ). Here the greatest length of the skull is> 29 mm for adults, the incisor foramen rectilinear ends between the first root of M1/ and the anterior part of nasal bones is rectilinear on each side of the median suture, which corresponds to L. striatus according to the key provided by Denys et al. (2020) ( Table 8 ). The molars of the new specimens of L. striatus from Nimba correspond well to the description of Denys et al. (2020) with cusps t2 and t3 of the M1/ prelobe aligned transversally, the large upper M3/ with 5 cusps, the tubercles of the lower M/1 are well aligned and relatively bunodont.