Masked white-tailed rat

Masked white-tailed rat
Conservation status
Near Threatened  (IUCN 2.3)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Rodentia
Family:	Muridae
Genus:	Uromys
Species:	U. hadrourus
Binomial name
Uromys hadrourus (Winter, 1983)

The masked white-tailed rat (Uromys hadrourus) is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found only in Australia, in north-east Queensland.

Descriptive English common names for this species include Masked White-tailed Rat and Thornton Peak Uromys. During the 1990s there was a push for such names to be replaced with indigenous Australian names, and accordingly, in 1995 the Australian Nature Conservation Agency published recommendations for the common names of rodents. They failed to identify any indigenous Australian names for U. hadrourus, so recommended the adoption of the name Kuku, the Kuku-Yalanki name for any rat.^[1] However this recommendation was not prescriptive, and it remains to be seen to what extent it will be adopted.

References

1. Braithwaite R. W.; et al. (1995). Australian names for Australian rodents. Australian Nature Conservation Agency. ISBN 0-642-21373-9.

• Baillie, J. 1996. Uromys hadrourus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 9 July 2007.
• Musser, G.G.; Carleton, M.D. (2005). "Superfamily Muroidea". In Wilson, D.E.; Reeder, D.M. Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 894–1531. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.