Confucian White-bellied Rat

The Confucian white-bellied rat is a murid in the genus Niviventer. It is widespread in mainland China and extends into northern Myanmar, north-western Thailand and north-western Vietnam, with northern Laos considered possible. In Thailand it is a high-mountain animal recorded around the summit of Doi Inthanon rather than a broadly distributed lowland rat (Mammal Species of the World).

Its taxonomic history is complex because it was repeatedly confused with Niviventer niviventer, N. tenaster and N. fulvescens. Specialist work now treats those as distinct, while additional former subspecies have also been separated using molecular, chromosomal and morphological evidence. This uncertainty makes older biological reports difficult to assign, so unsupported measurements and ecology are omitted (Mammal Species of the World; ZooKeys taxonomic study). It is Nationally Data Deficient (Thailand Red Data 2025).