Coues, Elliott, 1842-99, American ornithologist, b. Portsmouth, N.H., grad. Columbian College, later Columbian Univ. and now George Washington Univ. (B.A., 1861; M.D., 1863; Ph.D., 1869). He served as an army surgeon in the Civil War and as naturalist on government surveys and taught (1877-87) at Columbian Univ. He was a founder of the American Society for Psychical Research and a leader in the theosophist movement. He wrote Key to North American Birds (1872), Birds of the Northwest (1847), and Fur-bearing Animals (1877); he edited the journals of Lewis and Clark (1893), Zebulon M. Pike (1895), and Alexander Henry and David Thompson (1897).

Coues's Rice Rat (Oryzomys couesi) is a species of rodent in genus Oryzomys distributed from extreme southern Texas through Mexico and Central America to northwestern Colombia. It was previously considered to represent the same species as the Marsh Rice Rat (Oryzomys palustris) from the southern United States, but the two are distinctive where their ranges meet in southern Texas. The species contains several peripheral populations whose relationships are currently unclear; also, its relationships with the related Jamaican Rice Rat, Nicaraguan Rice Rat and Gorgas's Rice Rat are still unclear. Coues's Rice Rat apparently contains at least three distinct species.

The species is threatened in Texas due to habitat loss, but its IUCN conservation status is Least Concern.

References

• Kays, R. W. and D. E. Wilson. 2000. Mammals of North America. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford.
• Musser, G. G. and M. D. Carleton. 2005. Superfamily Muroidea. Pp. 894-1531 in Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder eds. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.