Melomys bougainville Troughton 1936 Melomys bougainville Troughton 1936, Rec. Aust. Mus., 19: 344. Type Locality: Solomon Isls, Bougainville Isl, Buin. Vernacular Names: Bougainville Island Melomys. Distribution: Recorded only from islands of Buka, Bougainville, and Choiseul in northern Solomon Arch. (Flannery and Wickler, 1990; Flannery, 1995 b). Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (nt). Discussion: Although historically treated as a subspecies of M. rufescens, M. bougainville is a separate species known by small samples of extant and archaeological specimens (Flannery and Wickler, 1990). Most closely related to M. rufescens, M. matambuai, and M. paveli (Helgen, 2003 b; Menzies, 1996).

Published as part of Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, pp. 1189-1531 in Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2, Baltimore :The Johns Hopkins University Press on page 1375, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7316535