. The Ecology of arboreal folivores : a symposium held at the Conservation and Research Center, National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Institution, May 29-31, 1975 . ^>.a Figure 6. Map of Sunda Islands, Malaya and Philippines. Note reduced diversity on the Philippines. Legend as in Figure 5. Species lists from: Medway, 1963, 1969; Chasen, 1940; and Taylor, 1934. The melanurus species group has one of the most complicated stomachs ever described for the Rodentia (Dobson, 1884). All of the foregoing background information serves to point up the fact that, given the absence of an endemic mammal
. The Ecology of arboreal folivores : a symposium held at the Conservation and Research Center, National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Institution, May 29-31, 1975 . ^>.a Figure 6. Map of Sunda Islands, Malaya and Philippines. Note reduced diversity on the Philippines. Legend as in Figure 5. Species lists from: Medway, 1963, 1969; Chasen, 1940; and Taylor, 1934. The melanurus species group has one of the most complicated stomachs ever described for the Rodentia (Dobson, 1884). All of the foregoing background information serves to point up the fact that, given the absence of an endemic mammalian form exploit- ing leaves, the capromyid rodents in the presence of a tropical rain forest were able to radiate and occupy this niche. Figure 6 indicates the diversity of mammalian species inhabiting the major islands of the Philippine Archipelago as compared with the species diversity of mammals in Malaya and Borneo. One of the more remarkable features of mammalian distribution in the Philippines involves recognition of the fact that the northern island of Luzon has been somewhat more isolated from the other islands of the Arch- ipelago. Luzon shows a higher number of endemic insectivore and rodent species and does not share certain important faunal elements with Borneo as does the southern large island of Mindanao (Taylor, 1934). Luzon does not have the arboreal folivore, Cynocephalus, nor does it have an endemic species of langur monkey. Again, in the absence of an estab- lished endemic arboreal folivore, the rodents have adaptively radiated on Luzon to fill the folivore niche and this radiation is taxonomically distinct as the murid subfamily Phloeomyinae. Our knowledge of the natural history of these endemic, muroid rodents is very sparse indeed. Wharton (1948) describes some features of the habi- tat. Taylor (1934) remarks on the noteworthy re- semblance of Phloeomys to Capromys and notes that Cabrera, not knowing its geographic origin, originally identified the first
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcolle, booksubjectleaves, booksubjectmammals
