Apodemus (mice) and Rattus (rats) are the top rodentreservoirs for zoonoses in China, yet little is knownabout their diversity. We reexamined the alphadiversity of these two genera based on a new collectionof specimens from China and their cyt b sequencesin GenBank. We also tested whether speciescould be identified using external and craniodentalmeasurements exclusively. Measurements from 147specimens of Apodemus and 233 specimens ofRattus were used for morphological comparisons. Weanalysed 74 cyt b sequences of Apodemus and 100cyt b sequences of Rattus to facilitate phylogeneticestimations. Results demonstrated that nine speciesof Apodemus and seven species of Rattus, plus anew subspecies of Rattus nitidus, are distributedin China. Principal component analysis usingexternal and craniodental measurements revealedthat measurements alone could not separate therecognized species. The occurrence of Rattus pyctorisin China remains uncertain.