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At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
USGS1998

The taxonomic status of the Yucatan brown brocket, Mazama pandora (Mammalia: Cervidae)

The Yucatan brown brocket deer, described as Mazama pandora, is now treated as a subspecies of either the common brown brocket, Mazama gouazoubira, or of the red brocket, M. americana. Analysis of brocket deer from Mexico and Central and South America, reveals that the Yucatan brown brocket is sympatric with the red brocket in Mexico and, while similar to M. gouazoubira, warrents recognition as a separate species.

Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washingto↗
USGS2002

A new species of small-eared shrew from Colombia and Venezuela (Mammalia: Soricomorpha: Soricidae: Genus Cryptotis)

Populations of small-eared shrews inhabiting the northern Cordillera Oriental of Colombia and adjoining Venezuelan highlands in the vicinity of Paramo de Tama have been referred alternatively to Cryptotis thomssi or Cryptotis meridensis. Morphological and morphometrical study of this population indicates that it belongs to neither taxon, but represents a distinct, previously unrecognized species. I describe this new species as Cryptotis tamensis and redescribe C. meridensis. Recognition of the population at Paramo de Tama as a separate taxon calls into question the identities of populations of shrews currently represented only by single specimens from Cerro Pintado in the Sierra de Perija, Colombia, and near El Junquito in the coastal highlands of Venezuela.

Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washingto↗
USGS2003

A new small-eared shrew of the Cryptotis nigrescens-group from Colombia (Mammalia: Soricomorpha: Soricidae)

Cryptotis colombiana Woodman & Timm, 1993 previously was known from few specimens from two isolated regions in the Cordillera Central and Cordillera Oriental of Colombia. Recent collecting in the northern Cordillera Central and review of older collections from the central Cordillera Oriental in the vicinity of Bogota yielded additional specimens that permit reevaluation of the two geographic populations of these small-eared shrews. Morphological and morphometrical studies indicate that the population inhabiting the Cordillera Oriental represents a distinct, previously unrecognized species that I describe herein as Cryptotis brachyonyx. Study of 54 specimens of shrews from the Cordillera Oriental in systematic collections in North America, South America, and Europe yielded only four specimens of the new species, all collected before 1926. The paucity of modern specimens suggests that C. brachyonyx may be extremely restricted in distribution, or possibly extinct.

Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washingto↗
USGS2004

Designation of the type species of Musaraneus Pomel, 1848 (Mammalia: Soricomorpha: Soricidae)

The genus name Musaraneus often is attributed to Brisson (1762), however, most of Brisson's names are unavailable. Pomel (1848) subsequently made the name Musaraneus available, but did not designate a type species. The 18 species that Pomel listed under Musaraneus currently are distributed among five modern genera, two of which (Cryptotis Pomel, 1848 and Diplomesodon Brandt, 1852) are predated by Musaraneus. Because Cryptotis and Diplomesodon potentially could be considered junior synonyms of Musaraneus, I propose Sorex leucodon Hermann, 1780 (= Crocidura leucodon) as the type species for Musaraneus, thereby establishing Musaraneus as a junior synonym of Crocidura Wagler, 1832.

Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washingto↗
USGS2006

Characters and phylogenetic relationships of nectar-feeding bats, with descriptions of new Lonchophylla from western South America (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae: Lonchophyllini)

The Neotropical Lonchophyllini (Chiropter: Phyllostomidae) currently comprise four genera and thirteen species of nectar-feeding bats. These species often are separated into larger-bodied (eight species) and smaller-bodied (five species) forms to aid in identification. Our morphological and morphometrical analyses of the smaller Lonchophyllini revealed the existence of two distinctive, previously undescribed species of bats of the genus Lonchophylla from western South America. We describe a new form from Amazonian Peru as Lonchophylla pattoni and one from western Colombia as Lonchophylla cadenai. Phyllogenetic analysis of the Lonchophyllini based primarily on morphological characters indicates that these two new species are closely related to Lonchophylla thomasi.

Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washingto↗
USGS2009

The Stephen H. Long Expedition (1819?1820), Titian R. Peale?s field illustrations, and the lost holotypes of the North American shrews Sorex brevicaudus Say and Sorex parvus Say (Mammalia: Soricidae) from the Philadelphia Museum

While encamped for the winter of 1819?1820 at Engineer Cantonment along the Missouri River in present-day eastern Nebraska, members of Major Stephen Harriman Long?s Expedition to the Rocky Mountains collected a number of animals that were previously unknown. Among the mammals were two soricids that were subsequently described by Thomas Say as Sorex brevicaudus (Northern Short-tailed Shrew, Blarina brevicauda) and Sorex parvus (Least Shrew, Cryptotis parvus). The holotypes of these species were deposited and placed on public exhibit in the Philadelphia Museum, the predominant North American systematic collection of the early nineteenth century. Like most private museums of that era, the Philadelphia Museum eventually went out of business, and its collections were dispersed and, for the most part, lost. Fortunately, Titian R. Peale made a detailed field sketch of the two specimens soon after their capture and subsequently executed a watercolor based on that sketch. In addition, an engraving of the holotypes was published in the decade following the discovery of the two species. Illustrations of holotypes are taxonomically useful when they depict diagnostic characters of species. They take on added taxonomic significance in the absence of the holotypes. In the cases of Sorex brevicaudus and Sorex parvus, pictures provide strong confirmation of the taxonomic identities of these two species, as well as recording the early history of the specimens.

Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washingto↗
USGS2019

Three new species of small-eared shrews, genus Cryptotis, from El Salvador and Guatemala (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla: Soricidae)

The Cryptotis goldmani group of small-eared shrews (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae: Cryptotis Pomel, 1848) is a clade of semifossorially adapted species discontinuously distributed in moist highlands from central Mexico to western Panama. Inspection of a recent collection of small mammals resulting from field work in Guatemala provided the impetus for a re-evaluation of one member of that group, Goodwin’s small-eared shrew, Cryptotis goodwini Jackson, 1933. On the basis of the results of that study, three new species of small-eared shrews are described from (1) disturbed cloud forest on Cerro Cucurucho, Sacatepéquez Department, Guatemala; (2) highlands east of Mataquescuintla, Jalapa Department, Guatemala; and (3) Cerro Montecristo, a massif at the mutual borders of northern El Salvador, eastern Guatemala, and western Honduras. The new species are most similar morphologically to the Guatemalan endemic species C. goodwini and C. mam Woodman, 2010, from which they are distinguished by a variety of external and cranial characters. Recognition of the three new species more narrowly defines the distribution of C. goodwini (sensu stricto) , which is now known only from portions of the western Sierra Madre of Guatemala.

Report↗
USGS1876

I. Sexual, individual, and geographical variation in leucosticte tephrocotis, II.Geographical variation among North American mammals, especially in respect to size

Having recently had an opportunity (through the kindness of Professor Baird) of studying with some care the magnificent series of skulls of the North American Mammalia belonging to the National Museum (amounting often to eighty or a hundred specimens of a single species), I have been strongly impressed with the different degrees of variability exhibited by the representatives of the species and genera of even the same family. The variation in size, for instance, with latitude, in the Wolves and Foxes is surprisingly great, amounting in some species (as will be shown later) to 25 per cent. of the average size of the species, while in other species of the Ferae it is almost nil . Contrary to the general supposition, the variation in size among representatives of the same species is not always a decrease with the decrease of the latitude of the locality, but is in some cases exactly the reverse, in some species there being a very considerable and indisputable increase southward . This, for instance, is very markedly true of some species of Felis and in Procyon lotor . Consequently, the very generally-received impression that in North America the species of Mammalia diminish in size southward, or with the decrease in the latitude (and altitude) of the locality, requires modification. While such is generally the case, the reverse of this too often occurs, with occasional instances also of a total absence of variation in size with locality, to be considered as forming "the exceptions" necessary to "prove the rule".

North America↗
USGS2017

Molecular systematics and biodiversity of the Cryptotis mexicanus group (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae): two new species from Honduras supported

Small-eared shrews of the genus Cryptotis (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla: Soricidae) are widespread in the northern Neotropics. Systematic studies of these shrews over the past two decades have revealed previously undocumented morphological and species diversity, resulting in a quadrupling of the number of recognized species. Unfortunately, a small proportion of the species in the genus have been included in molecular phylogenetic studies, and evolutionary relationships within the genus are incompletely known. Traditionally, species have been assigned to four or five morphologically defined ‘species groups’, but tests of the monophyly of some of these groups show weak support and relationships amongst species groups remain somewhat speculative. The largest species group is the C. mexicanus group inhabiting Mexico and northern Central America. We studied sequences from mitochondrial cytochrome-b and 16S genes, as well as nuclear ApoB and BRCA1 genes from 22 species of Cryptotis , including 15 species in the C. mexicanus group. Our combined analysis shows that the C. goldmani subgroup is very weakly supported as monophyletic; however, the C. mexicanus group as a whole is not monophyletic. Our molecular phylogenetic analyses confirm the distinctiveness of two newly described species ( C. celaque and C. mccarthyi ) from isolated highlands of western Honduras and illustrate their relationship with other species formerly considered part of a widespread C. goodwini .

Systematics and Biodiversity↗