Bandicota indica (Bechstein, 1800). In Pennant, Allgemeine Ueber Vierfuss. Thiere, 2:497. TYPE LOCALITY: India, Pondicherry. DISTRIBUTION: Sri Lanka, peninsular India north to Nepal, NE India (Assam), Burma, S China (Yunnan and Hong Kong Isl), Taiwan, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. Introduced into Kedah and Perlis regions of Malay Peninsula (Harrison, 1956; J. T. Marshall, Jr., 1977a) as well as Sumatra and Java (Musser and Newcomb, 1983). Its spotty distribution may reflect other geographic introductions (Taiwan for example); "since it is commensal, large, and delicious to eat, this bandicoot may have been spread by man in comparatively recent times" (J. T. Marshall, Jr., 1977a:428). SYNONYMS: bandicota (of Bechstein, 1800; see Ellerman, 1941), elliotanus, eloquens, gigantea, jabouillei, kagii, macropus, malabarica, mordax, nemorivaga, perchai, setifera, siamensis, taiwanus. COMMENTS: Morphologically more closely related to B. savilei than to B. bengalensis , but based on gel electrophoretic comparisons closer to Nesokia than to other species of Bandicota (Radtke and Niethammer, 1984 /85). Chromosomal data for Thai samples provided by Markvong et al. (1973). A careful systematic revision is necessary to assess the significance of morphological and biochemical variation among samples. Pradhan et al. (1989), for example, argued that B. gigantea is specifically distinct from B. indica, and indicated they are pursuing a taxonomic revision of the genus.

{"references": ["Harrison, J. L. 1956. Records of bandicoot rats (Bandicota, Rodentia, Muridae) new to the fauna of Malaya and Thailand. Bulletin of the Raffles Museum (Singapore), 27: 27 - 31.", "Musser, G. G., and C. Newcomb. 1983. Malaysian murids and the giant rat of Sumatra. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 174: 327 - 598.", "Ellerman, J. R. 1941. The families and genera of living rodents. Vol. II. Family Muridae. British Museum (Natural History), London, 690 pp.", "Radtke, M., and J. Niethammer. 1984 [1985]. Zur Stellung der Pestratte (Nesokia indica) im System der Murinae. Saugetierkundliche Mitteilungen, 32: 13 - 16.", "Markvong, A., J. Marshall, and A. Gropp. 1973. Chromosomes of rats and mice of Thailand. Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society, 25: 23 - 40.", "Pradhan, M. S., A. Mondal, and V. C. Agrawal. 1989. Proposal of an additional species in the genus Bandicota Gray (order: Rodentia; fam: Muridae) from India. Mammalia, 53 (3): 369 - 376."]}

Published as part of Guy G. Musser & Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, pp. 501-755 in Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London :Smithsonian Institution Press on page 579, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7353098