title: Afroalpine vlei rat
text: # Afroalpine vlei rat
  
  The afroalpine vlei rat (Otomys orestes) is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is found in the high moorlands of Kenya.
  
  ## Taxonomy
  
  In Musser and Carleton (2005), this species included a number of subspecies.
  
  Otomys thomasi (Thomas's vlei rat), which was initially described as a species by Osgood in 1910, was included under O. orestes in their work, alongside. However, Taylor et al. (2011) found that O. thomasi, O. zinki (Mount Kilimanjaro vlei rat) and others subspecies were distinct from O. orestes.
  
  