Black-tailed mosaic-tailed rat
species of mammal
The black-tailed mosaic-tailed rat or black-tailed melomys (Melomys rufescens) is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found through much of New Guinea and also on some nearby islands, namely Salawati and Misool (Indonesia), and the Bismarck Archipelago (including New Britain and New Ireland).
Names
It is known as alks in the Kalam language of Papua New Guinea.
Habitat
This species is common in disturbed habitat and in primary forest at elevations up to 2,400 m (7,900 ft) above sea level. It is largely arboreal.
References
Musser, G. G.; Carleton, M. D. (2005). "Superfamily Muroidea". In Wilson, D. E.; Reeder, D. M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press.
“Black-tailed mosaic-tailed rat” enters the record as species of mammal. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Black-tailed, mosaic-tailed and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 28, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1768809. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Black-tailed mosaic-tailed rat” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.