The Somali striped mole rat (''Fukomys ilariae'')
Fukomys ilariae
' at BioLib.cz is a species of small

mole rat Mole-rat or mole rat can refer to several groups of burrowing Old World rodents: * Bathyergidae, a family of about 20 hystricognath species in six genera from Africa also called blesmols. *''Heterocephalus glaber'', the naked mole-rat. * Spalacidae ...

that is endemic to the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

. The holotype is preserved in the Museo Civico di Zoologia in Rome and probably originated from Benadir, the first nucleus of the Colony of

Italian Somalia Italian Somaliland (; ; ) was a protectorate and later colony of the Kingdom of Italy in present-day Somalia, which was ruled in the 19th century by the Sultanate of Hobyo and the Majeerteen Sultanate in the north, and by the Hiraab Imamate an ...

established at the beginning of 20th century. The species is dedicated to the Italian journalist Ilaria Alpi, who was murdered in Somalia .

References

Endemic fauna of Somalia Fukomys Mammals described in 2011 Species known from a single specimen {{Rodent-stub