A study of scientific publications on the greater cane rat (Thryonomys swinderianus, Temminck 1827)

Abstract

Background: The greater cane rat (GCR), reputed to be African's second largest rodent, is a precocial hystricomorph with an uncommon phenotype and life history. Scientific and socio-economic interests in the GCR have led to heightened research efforts targeted towards a better understanding of its biology and exploration of its economic and translational usefulness.Methods: Records of all online scientific publications on the GCR from Google, Google Scholar, PubMed, science.gov, Ebscohost and Worldwide science, with the exception of research theses, proceedings, unpublished projects and abstracts, were collated and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results:A total of 146 published scholarly articles spanning about six decades were retrieved, with 98% of the GCR publications originating from African countries. Nigeria boasts the highest number of publications (58.22%) followed by Ghana (21.23%) and South Africa (5.48%) while Senegal contributed the least (0.69%).Publications were sorted into ten field categories. The field with the highest number of articles (41.78%) was animal breeding and management recording, closely followed by anatomy (37.67%). Lesser contributions were made by parasitology (5.48%), biochemistry/hematology (4.8%), pharmacology/toxicology (4.11%), pathology (2.06%), and surgery/anesthesia and physiology (1.37% apiece). The fields with fewest contributions were microbiology and developmental biology (0.69% each). Conclusion:This study chronicles the spectrum of knowledge available on the GCR, highlighting the knowledge gap that still exists in various fields in order to provide advocacy for new frontiers in research efforts on this rodent. We suggest the need for a clearly defined and well integrated national/regional policy aimed at establishing Africa's foremost micro-livestock rodent, the greater cane rat, on the world's scientific radar. K E Y W O R D SAfrican rodent, grasscutter, greater cane rat, micro-livestock, review, wildlife | 41 MUSTAPHA eT Al.

Population structure and evolutionary history of the greater cane rat (Thryonomys swinderianus) from the Guinean Forests of West Africa

“…Another study on bush meat included grasscutter mitochondrial markers (Gaubert et al, 2015) but did not focus on grasscutter population genetics. It is noteworthy that study on grasscutter population genetics using mitochondrial nucleotide sequences in Nigeria is yet to be documented (Mustapha et al, 2020). Importantly, the impacts and the threat of hunting to the wild grasscutter population has not been extensively investigated.…”

Histology and ultrastructure of olfactory and nasal respiratory mucosae in suckling and adult African grasscutters (Thryonomys swinderianus- Temminck, 1827)

“…In the wild, GRCs inhabit dense and thick cane-like grasses growing in damp places where they live in small groups led by a single male (Woods and Kilpatrick, 2005;Aluko et al 2015;Adu et al 2017). These animals exhibit nocturnal and precocial behaviors and have an uncommon phenotype and life history (Mustapha et al 2020).…”

Cytoarchitecture of greater cane rat (Thryonomys swinderianus) habenulae and mammillary body

“…After a thorough search of literature, there is however a scarceness of data on histology and immunohistochemistry of habenulae (an epithalamic structure) and mammillary body (a hypothalamic structure) of this cane rat. Due to the increasing use of GCR as an animal research model (Mustapha et al, 2020), there is the need to establish more baseline research data on the cellular architecture and neuroanatomical profile. Previous histoarchitectural studies reporting on the nervous system of the GCR include:…”