New High Elevation Records for the Mesic Four-Striped Grass Rat Rhabdomys dilectus on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Although several species of rodents thrive in high elevation alpine ecosystems on Africa’s highest peaks (Happold, 2013), their upper elevation limits are poorly known because most biological surveys and natural history studies occur at lower elevations where the species are more common. Documenting the upper elevation limits of rodent species is important to better understand their behavior, nutrition, physiology, distributional and morphological changes associated with climate change, and interactions with humans at the upper limits of their range (Moritz et al., 2008; Storz et al., 2010, 2020; Beever et al., 2011; Rowe et al., 2014; Gebrezgiher et al., 2022; Saraiva & Grigione 2022). The mesic four-striped grass rat Rhabdomys dilectus (De Winton, 1897) is one of five currently recognized species within the genus that are distinguishable only by molecular traits (Rambau et al., 2003; Castiglia et al., 2012; du Toit et al., 2012; Monadjem et al., 2015). Disjunct populations occur in a variety of mesic ecosystems spanning a high range of elevations in southern and eastern Africa (du Toit et al., 2012; Monadjem et al., 2015). Its highest reported elevations are 4200 m on Mount Elgon, Uganda or Kenya (Clausnitzer & Kityo 2001; Happold, 2013), 4180 m on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania (