Fossil Rodents from Fort Ternan, Kenya

Abstract

THE rodent fauna from Fort Ternan which Dr. L. S. B. Leakey has sent to me for examination consists for the moment of only a few specimens comprising the following: Seventeen mandibles, a fragment of a skull in which the teeth are unfortunately very worn, and 26 incisors. The mandibles represent creatures of small size, but on the other hand six of the incisors suggest the presence of species of the size of the large Phiomyidae of Rusinga and Songhor. Nine mandibles belong to the Cricetodontini, one represents a small Phiomydae similar to one of the forms from Songhor, one represents a Sciuridae, while three of the mandibles belong to a new genus, Leakeymys ternani nov. gen., nov. sp., to which genus and species I also provisionally attribute the skull fragment. (The collection also includes a mandible of a murine, but in this specimen the bone is not completely fossilized as it is in all the other material, and it is, therefore, I believe, an intrusive specimen which can be ignored at the present time.)