The stone-loving mouse is the name used in some lists of rodents for Mus platythrix, a spiny mouse of the family Muridae that the Mammal Diversity Database calls the flat-haired mouse and also the brown spiny mouse. Edward Turner Bennett described it in 1832 from the Deccan in India, and it is found only in India, where it ranges across the south and centre of the peninsula. It belongs to the subgenus Pyromys. It is a medium-sized mouse with dark brown spiny fur on the back and a white to greyish belly, a head and body length of roughly 77 to 123 millimetres and a body weight near 18 grams. It is terrestrial and nocturnal and lives in uncultivated hilly country with sandy, rocky and gravelly ground, and also in cultivated fields. In southern India the Tamil name kall-eli, stone rat, records its habit of arranging pebbles around its burrow entrances. The Red List status is Least Concern.
Facts
Conservation Status Activity Pattern Classification
Living or Extinct Connections
Child Taxon Of
Muridae, Taxa Source Mus platythrix (Mammal Diversity Database)
In the Other Atlases
Found In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Source Mus platythrix (Mammal Diversity Database)Type localityQuote, Type locality
Deccan, India.
Sources
1. Mus platythrix (Mammal Diversity Database)
IUCN Red List status
Least Concern
Species status
Living
Type locality
Deccan, India.
In Group: Rodents And Lagomorphs, Taxonomy, order
Order: Rodentia
Child Taxon Of: Muridae, Taxonomy, family
Family: Muridae
View the Source2. Global Biodiversity Information Facility: Mus platythrix descriptions (GBIF)
Global Biodiversity Information FacilityActivity patternsQuote, Activity patterns
Flat-haired Mice are terrestrial and nocturnal.
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