Rattus montanus Phillips, 1932. Ceylon J. Sci., Sec. B, 16:323. TYPE LOCALITY: Sri Lanka (Ceylon), West Haputale, Ohiya, 6000 ft. DISTRIBUTION: Known only from the type locality, Horton Plains at 7000 ft, and Nuwara Eliya at 6000 ft in primary montane forests of Central and Uva Provinces of Sri Lanka (Phillips, 1980). COMMENTS: A montane endemic on Sri Lanka and morphologically so unlike most other species of Rattus it may not belong in same genus, despite assertion of one author that it is nothing more than a large form of R. rattus (see Musser, 1986:22). Like R. annandalei, R. hoogerwerfi, R. korinchi, R. macleari, R. nativitatis, and members of the R. xanthurus group, the Ceylon endemic seems isolated within present morphological boundaries of Rattus (Musser, 1986).

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 656, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7353098

{"references": ["Phillips, W. W. A. 1980 - 1984. Manual of the mammals of Sri Lanka. Second revised ed. Wildlife and Nature Protection Society of Sri Lanka, 1: 1 - 116 [1980]; 2: 117 - 267 [1980]; 3: 268 - 389 [1984]."]}