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Megalomys audreyae
''Megalomys audreyae'', known as the Barbudan (?) Muskrat〔Ray, 1962, p. 90〕 or the Barbuda giant rice-rat,〔MacPhee and Flemming, 1999, table 2〕 is an extinct oryzomyine rodent from Barbuda in the Lesser Antilles. Described on the basis of a single mandible (lower jaw) with the first molar missing and an isolated upper incisor, both of uncertain but Quaternary age, it is one of the smaller members of the genus ''Megalomys''. Little is known about the animal, and its provenance and distinction from "''Ekbletomys hypenemus''", an even larger extinct oryzomyine that also occurred on Barbuda, have been called into question. The toothrow in the lower jaw has a length of 8.7 mm at the alveoli. The third molar is relatively narrow and both the second and third molars have a wide valley between their outer cusps.
==History==
Remains of ''Megalomys audreyae'' were found by John Walter Gregory among cave breccia on Barbuda around 1900. The exact locality is unknown. In his 1901 description of ''Oryzomys luciae'', Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major mentioned the Barbuda animal as another member of the ''Megalomys'' group, but he never published a description of the latter. Édouard Louis Trouessart gave the name ''Oryzomys (Megalomys) majori'' to it in his ''Catalogus Mammalium'', but he did not describe it and therefore the name is a ''nomen nudum''. In 1926, Arthur Hopwood finally described it and named it ''Megalomys audreyae'' after Gregory's wife Audrey, following Major's intention.〔Hopwood, 1926, pp. 328–329〕
The oryzomyines of the Caribbean were revised in 1962 by Clayton Ray, who examined the specimens Gregory had found and redescribed them.〔Ray, 1962, pp. 92–94〕 He suggested that ''M. audreyae'' may in fact have come from Barbados instead of similarly named Barbuda, citing the occurrence of a different oryzomyine ("''Ekbletomys hypenemus''") in other cave deposits on Barbuda, circumstantial evidence for the occurrence of a native rodent on Barbados, uncertainty whether Gregory ever visited Barbuda, and biogeographical considerations.〔Ray, 1962, pp. 90–91〕
In the subsequent literature, ''M. audreyae'' has seldom been mentioned and never been further described. In a 1999 review of recent extinctions in mammals, Ross MacPhee and C. Flemming reported that ''M. audreyae'' had been recovered from a locality on Barbuda known as Darby Sink, which had been radiocarbon dated to around 1200 CE. They also stated that ''M. audreyae'' and "''Ekbletomys''" may in fact be identical.〔MacPhee and Flemming, 1999, table 2, footnote f〕 However, in 2009 Samuel Turvey suggested that two different rice rats were in fact present in material from Barbuda, which would imply that ''M. audreyae'' is a valid species.〔Turvey, 2009, pp. 52, 61〕
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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