Species
Arvicanthis blicki
Description
Arvicanthis blicki Frick, 1914
This is a high altitude species with relatively large body size, typical for the Afroalpine moorland zone above 3500 m a.s.l., but it also descends to grasslands at lower altitudes (Yalden et al. 1976). It is very distinct at skull morphology (Fadda & Corti 2001). It was considered to be distributed only in the Bale and Arsi Mts., east of the Rift Valley, but the population in Debre Sina west of the Rift Valley is genetically similar especially at nuclear markers and very likely represents this species as well, possibly affected by hybridization with A. abyssinicus (Bryja et al. 2019). The understanding of possible reticulate evolution of Ethiopian highland taxa (A. abyssinicus, A. blicki, A. saturatus) would require the use of genomic approaches and new material especially from west of the Rift Valley.
Taxonomy
Arvicanthis blicki is a species. It belogs to the Muridae family.
