Sommer's Sulawesi rat

Sommer's Sulawesi rat (Sommeromys macrorhinos) is a small rodent in the family Muridae from Sulawesi. It is the only species in the genus Sommeromys and was described by Musser and Durden in 2002. It was first known from a single specimen, caught in 1973 at 2,400 metres on Gunung Tokala, a mountain between the Rampi and Seko valleys in Sulawesi Tengah, in primary mossy forest that human activity had somewhat disturbed, and it has also been found on Mount Gandangdewata in West Sulawesi. The animal is extremely small, with a long muzzle and an extremely long tail, and feeds mainly on insects: the stomach of the specimen held insect fragments, fly eggs and nematodes. A louse found on it was itself a new species. The rat is named after Helmut G. Sommer of the American Museum of Natural History, and its describers place it among the Old Endemic rodents of Sulawesi and the Philippines, close to Crunomys and Archboldomys.