KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 58. NIO 2. 61 



Mungos ichneumon centralis n. subsp. 



A female specimen from Beni, Aug. — Sept. 1914, and another specimen which un- 

 fortunately is not labeled. The former appears, to judge from the size to be rather young. 



These specimens differ to some degree as well from East, as from West African 

 specimens in this museum. The back is grizzled with 3 — 5 mm. broad white rings to the 

 otherwise black hairs, but on the flanks the colour is yery diff erent, isabclline brown. This 

 is effected by the there buff ish white parts of the hairs occupying a much broader space, 

 than is the case on the back (especially the whitish tips are very long), and partly by the 

 fading of the narrowed dark rings to brownish, and finally by the shining through of the 

 under fur, which in the smaller specimen is a påle shade of »buff» (Dauthénay, Rép. de 

 Coul. 309, 1), in the older more resembling cinnamon. On the neck there is a strikingly 

 sharp line of demarcation between the median dorsal band of grizzled black and white, 

 and the paler sides where the black has partly faded to brown, and the light rings on the 

 hairs dominate at the same time as the under fur sinnes through. Such a pattern is not 

 to be seen in the specimens of M. i. parvidens Lönnb. from Lower Congo which geo- 

 graphically ought to be the next neighbour. On the other hand the bright colour of the 

 under fur is common both to the present specimens and M . i. parvidens. On the back 

 of the former it may be termed cinnamon, a little duller on the anterior back, brighter 

 and more inclining to rufous on the posterior back. This is very much in contrast to the 

 colour of the under fur of East African specimens (in this museum) which is more brown, re- 

 sembling raw umber, or snuff brown. Mungos ichneumon of Egypt again appears to 

 have its under fur very richly coloured as it is described in »Zoology of Egypt» as »brick- 

 red with dark sootbrown bases - - graduating to yellow and buff on the neck ». 



The under fur of the present specimens is also much more strongly devcloped than 

 that in specimens from Lower Congo and those from East Africa in this museum. On 

 the lower back it attains a length of about 23 mm., on the anterior back it is somewhat 

 shorter. The hairs are in the former place 60 — 70 mm. and in the latter 45 — 50 mm. On 

 the basal portion of the tail the hairs attain a length of 90 — 120 mm. The fur is thus 

 generally much longer than in M . i. parvidens. Just below the terminal black tuft the 

 tail of the older specimen for fully 6 cm. is clothed with elongated pure white hairs which 

 surround the black terminal tuft. In the younger specimen this white portion is not 

 developed, but the hairs have long white tips. On the intermediate short-haircd portion 

 of the tail the dark rings of the hairs are very påle, and the whole looks rather uniform 

 isabelline brown (similar to the colour of the flanks), but sharply defined from the above 

 mentioned subterminal white. 



The strong development of the fur of these specimens, if comparcd with their rela- 

 tives from Lower Congo, undoubtedly stånds in correspondcnce with a somewhat harsher 

 climate of their native country, as there are many analogies to such a condition to be 

 found elsewhere. This characteristic alone appears thus not sufficient to distinguish these 

 specimens as representatives of a different geographic race, but taken together with the 

 different colour as described above I think that it forms reason enough for doing so. 



