Fynbos vlei rat

The Fynbos vlei rat (Otomys karoensis) is a rodent of the family Muridae and the vlei rat genus Otomys, found only in South Africa. Mammal Diversity Database lists it as a living species described by A. Roberts in 1931 from a specimen collected at Tulbach in the Western Cape. The Handbook of the Mammals of the World gives its range as disjunct, with populations in the Cape Fold Belt mountains of the Western Cape and isolated populations in the southern Free State and the Eastern Cape north of 33 degrees south. It lives in rocky mountain fynbos where restio plants dominate, and in grasslands and shrublands in the Drakensberg Mountains. It is a medium to large, robust rat with a large blunt head, short tail and shaggy, pallid grayish buff fur, measuring 110 to 154 millimetres head and body and weighing 78 to 139 grams. The species was once included in Otomys saundersiae, a name now treated as a synonym of the Southern African vlei rat (Otomys irroratus), but morphometric characteristics separate the two. Mammal Diversity Database lists it as Least Concern, while the Handbook notes that it was not assessed on the IUCN Red List and is regionally listed as least concern in South Africa. Its diet and breeding are unrecorded, and the Handbook calls it docile and curious in captivity.