Ethiopian forest brush-furred rat

The Ethiopian forest brush-furred rat (Lophuromys chrysopus), also called the golden-footed brush-furred rat, is a small rodent in the family Muridae that is found only in Ethiopia. It lives in moist evergreen rainforest on mountainsides and plateaus at altitudes of roughly 1,200 to 2,760 metres, in two separate populations divided by the Great Rift Valley. It has a head and body length of about 115 millimetres and a tail of about 80 millimetres. The dorsal fur is long, dense and somewhat stiff and blackish-brown, each hair banded in reddish-brown, black and yellowish, while the underparts are creamy-grey with dark speckles and the tail is bicoloured. Populations east of the Rift Valley are redder above and yellower below. Its chromosome number of 2n = 54 distinguishes it from the short-tailed brush-furred rat, which has 68. It is one of the commonest rodents in the mountain forests of Ethiopia and is protected in Bale Mountains National Park, but continued forest loss threatens it elsewhere. The IUCN rates it as least concern.