How many species of and occur in China? A survey based on mitochondrial cyt b and morphological analyses.

(mice) and (rats) are the top rodent reservoirs for zoonoses in China, yet little is known about their diversity. We reexamined the alpha diversity of these two genera based on a new collection of specimens from China and their cyt sequences in GenBank. We also tested whether species could be identified using external and craniodental measurements exclusively. Measurements from 147 specimens of and 236 specimens of Rattus were used for morphological comparisons. We analysed 74 cyt sequences of Apodemus and 100 cyt sequences of to facilitate phylogenetic estimations. Results demonstrated that nine species of and seven species of , plus a new subspecies of , are distributed in China. Principal component analysis using external and craniodental measurements revealed that measurements alone could not separate the recognized species. The occurrence of in China remains uncertain.