Shaw Mayer's brush mouse

Shaw Mayer's brush mouse (Pogonomelomys mayeri) is a rodent of the family Muridae found in the mountains of northern and central New Guinea, in West Papua in Indonesia and in Papua New Guinea. It was described by Rothschild and Dollman in 1932 from the Weyland Range, and it is the smallest member of its genus. Adults measure about 134 to 152 millimetres from head to rump with a tail of 153 to 205 millimetres, and weigh roughly 75 to 144 grams. The fur is brown above, varying in shade and lighter on the sides, and pure white below, longer and softer than in related species. The brown tail is scaleless and prehensile at the tip, and females have two pairs of inguinal mammae. The animal is at least partly arboreal: one female nested in a tubular nest of leaves and moss in a Pandanus above the ground, and another was caught in a tree hollow. It lives in tropical moist forest at elevations of about 400 to 1500 metres. It is rarely captured but presumed to have a large population, is probably threatened by habitat loss in the north of its range, and is classed as Least Concern by the IUCN.