Spiny Boki Mekot Rat

Halmaheramys bokimekot, the spiny Boki Mekot rat, is a rodent found on the island of Halmahera in the Molucca archipelago, whose discovery was announced in 2013. This is the only locality where this particular species has been found. H. bokimekot was confirmed as a new species through probabilistic methodologies applied to morphological and molecular data.

Named after its geographical provenance in the North Moluccas, Halmaheramys is the only known murine species endemic to Halmahera. The island is part of the biogeographical province of Wallacea. a transitional zone between the Asian and Australasian realms first identified by Alfred Russel Wallace. It is east of the Wallace and Weber lines, but west of Lydekker's Line. The ancestors of H. bokimekot are believed to have colonized Halmahera from the west, probably from Sulawesi; other native Moluccan rodents are believed or suspected to have arrived from islands to the east, consistent with Wallace's insight. Phylogenetically, Halmaheramys nests within a clade whose other members are the genera Sundamys (from Malaysia and western Indonesia, i.e. Sundaland), Bullimus (from the Philippines), Bunomys, Paruromys and Taeromys (from Sulawesi).