This speckled rat occurs in southern Tanzania, northern Malawi and northern Mozambique. Its reported habitats include high mountain forests and scrub.
Its fur is speckled, and its tail seems short, at about half the head-and-body length.
The HMW7 species account lists primary and secondary mountain forests and Afro-alpine scrub above 2,000 m, up to about 2,900 m. Its named mountain areas include Mount Rungwe and the Malawi/Nyika Plateau region.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.