Hopkins's groove-toothed swamp rat

Hopkins's groove-toothed swamp rat
Conservation status
Vulnerable (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Rodentia
Family:	Muridae
Genus:	Pelomys
Species:	P. hopkinsi
Binomial name
Pelomys hopkinsi Hayman, 1955

Hopkins's groove-toothed swamp rat (Pelomys hopkinsi Hayman, 1955) is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, possibly Burundi, and possibly Tanzania. Its natural habitat is swamps. It is threatened by habitat loss.

The rat was described by Robert William Hayman in 1955. It is named after the entomologist, George Henry Evans Hopkins, O.B.E., M.A., F.R.E.S. (1898-1973), who lived and worked in Uganda for many years, and was noted for his researches on three groups of insects: lice, fleas and mosquitoes. Hopkins had collaborated with Hayman and Reginald Ernest Moreau in the publication of “The type-localities of some African mammals” in The Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London in 1946.

References

• Dieterlen, F. & Boitani, L. 2004. Pelomys hopkinsi. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 19 July 2007.
• Beolens, Bo, Michael Watkins, and Michael Grayson. 2009. The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
• Moreau R.E., G.H.E. Hopkins, and R.W. Hayman. 1946. The type-localities of some African mammals. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1946:387-447.
• Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society of London. 1973. Royal Entomological Society of London. [1]. Downloaded 30 June 2012.