"Murine" redirects here. Not to be confused with Murrine the art glass technique.
The Old World rats and mice, part of the subfamilyMurinae in the familyMuridae, comprise at least 519 species. Members of this subfamily are called murines. In terms of species richness, this subfamily is larger than all mammal families except the Cricetidae and Muridae, and is larger than all mammalorders except the bats and the remainder of the rodents.[1]
The murines have a distinctive molar pattern that involves three rows of cusps instead of two, the primitive pattern seen most frequently in muroid rodents.[4]
Fossils
The first known appearance of the Murinae in the fossil record is about 14 million years ago with the fossil genus Antemus. Antemus is thought to derive directly from Potwarmus, which has a more primitive tooth pattern. Likewise, two genera, Progonomys and Karnimata, are thought to derive directly from Antemus. Progonomys is thought to be the ancestor of Mus and relatives, while Karnimata was previously thought to lead to Rattus and relatives, although it is now thought to be a member of the extant tribe Praomyini.[4][5] All of these fossils are found in the well-preserved and easily dated Siwalik fossil beds of Pakistan. The transition from Potwarmus to Antemus to Progonomys and Karnimata is considered an excellent example of anagenic evolution.[4]
Taxonomy
Most of the Murinae have been poorly studied. Some genera have been grouped, such as the hydromyine water rats, conilurine or pseudomyine Australian mice, or the phloeomyine Southeast Asian forms. It appears as if genera from Southeast Asian islands and Australia may be early offshoots compared to mainland forms. The vlei rats in the genera Otomys and Parotomys are often placed in a separate subfamily, Otomyinae, but have been shown to be closely related to African murines in spite of their uniqueness.
Molecular phylogenetic studies of Murinae include Lecompte, et al. (2008),[6] which analyzes African murine species based on the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene and two nuclear gene fragments. Lecompte, et al. (2008) estimates that African murines colonized Africa from Asia approximately 11 million years ago during the Miocene.
The following is a list of Murinae genus divisions ordered by the continents that they are endemic to. Most of the diversity is located in Southeast Asia and Australasia.
As of 2005, the Murinae contained 129 genera in 584 species. Musser and Carleton (2005) divided the Murinae into 29 genus divisions. They treated the Otomyinae as a separate subfamily, but all molecular analyses conducted to date have supported their inclusion in the Murinae as relatives of African genera.[7][8][9][10] In a recent expedition in the Philippines, seven more Apomys mice were added and the genus was proposed to split into two subgenera - Apomys and Megapomys, based on morphological and cytochrome b DNA sequences.[11] In 2021, a major revision was taken of Praomyini.[12]
Heaney, Lawrence R.; Balete, Danilo S.; Rickart, Eric A.; Alviola, Phillip A.; Duya, Mariano Roy M.; Duya, Melizar V.; Veluz, M. Josefa; Vandevrede, Lawren; Steppan, Scott J. (2011). "Chapter 1: Seven New Species and a New Subgenus of Forest Mice (Rodentia: Muridae: Apomys) from Luzon Island". Fieldiana Life and Earth Sciences. 2 (2): 1–60. doi:10.3158/2158-5520-2.1.1. S2CID86544405.
Jacobs, Louis L. (1978). Fossil Rodents (Rhizomyidae & Muridae): From Neogene Siwalik Deposits, Pakistan. Bulletin of the Museum of Northern Arizona, 52. OCLC4611477.
Jansa, Sharon A.; Weksler, Marcelo (2004). "Phylogeny of muroid rodents: Relationships within and among major lineages as determined by IRBP gene sequences". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 31 (1): 256–276. Bibcode:2004MolPE..31..256J. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2003.07.002. PMID15019624.
McKenna, Malcolm C.; Bell, Susan K. (2000). Classification of Mammals Above the Species Level. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN978-0-231-11013-6.
Musser, G.G.; Carleton, M. D. (1993). "Family Muridae". In Wilson, Don E; Reeder, DeeAnn M (eds.). Mammal Species of the World a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. pp. 501–755. ISBN978-1-56098-217-3.
Musser, Guy G.; Heaney, Lawrence R. (2006). "Philippine rodents: Definitions of Tarsomys and Limnomys plus a preliminary assessment of phylogenetic patterns among native Philippine murines (Murinae, Muridae)". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 21: 1–138. hdl:2246/906.
Nowak, R.M. (1999). Walker's Mammals of the World, Vol. 2. London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Steppan, Scott; Adkins, Ronald; Anderson, Joel (2004). "Phylogeny and Divergence-Date Estimates of Rapid Radiations in Muroid Rodents Based on Multiple Nuclear Genes". Systematic Biology. 53 (4): 533–53. doi:10.1080/10635150490468701. JSTOR4135423. PMID15371245.
Steppan, Scott J.; Adkins, R.M.; Spinks, P.Q.; Hale, C. (2005). "Multigene phylogeny of the Old World mice, Murinae, reveals distinct geographic lineages and the declining utility of mitochondrial genes compared to nuclear genes". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 37 (2): 370–88. Bibcode:2005MolPE..37..370S. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2005.04.016. PMID15975830.
