Pebas four-eyed rat
| Pebas four-eyed rat | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Philander pebas | ||||||||||||
| Voss , Díaz-Nieto & Jansa, 2018 |
The Pebas four-eye pouch rat ( Philander pebas ) is a South American pouch mammal from the genus of the four-eye pouch rats ( Philander ). It was only in January 2018 described and comes in the western Brazilian Amazon Basin , in the eastern lowlands of Ecuador and Peru and possibly also in the southeast of Colombia in the catchment area of the Río Caquetá and Putumayo River before. The species name pebas comes from the name of Lake Pebas , a lake system of the Miocene in the western Amazon basin.
features
Philander pebas has a very short fur on the back. The hair is a maximum of 12 mm long. The fur is a solid gray, sometimes a little darker in the middle of the back. However, a pronounced dark stripe on the middle of the back is not formed. The peritoneum is predominantly gray, in the groin area now and then cream-colored or light brown-yellow. The top of the head is gray, sometimes with a blackish tendency, but never purely black. Philander pebas differs from all other four-eye sac rats by the folded and grooved enamel of his molars . The feature can be seen mainly in young animals, but remains visible in the fourth molar even in older adults.
Philander pebas and Philander canus are the smallest species of four-eye bag rats. Exact information about the length of the head, the length of the tail or the weight of Philander pebas is not yet available.
In northeastern Peru the Pebas four-eye-rat occurs sympatric with the black four-eye-rat ( P. andersoni ), in southeastern Peru together with Philander canus and McIlhenny's four-eye-rat ( P. mcilhennyi ).
Philander pebas differs from Philander canus , the sister species , in the larger growth and morphometry of the skull. The nasal bone of Philander pebas is longer and narrower, the palatine bone is longer, the interpupillary distance is larger. The fur on the belly of Philander canus is whitish, cream-colored or light brown-yellow from the chin to the groin, whereas that of Philander pebas is gray with whitish, cream-colored or light brown-yellow tones only on the chin, on the chest or on the groin in a few specimens, however never continuously. In Philander pebas the scaly, last quarter of the tail or less is colored white, in Philander canus it is a third to half. In contrast to Philander pebas, the black four- eyed rat has a distinct dark back median stripe, and in her and in the black four- eyed rat ( Philander andersoni ) at least half of the tail is white. McIlhenny's four-eyed opossum is blackish and has longer fur.
habitat
The pebas four-eyed rat occurs in the lowland rainforest in the western Amazon basin. The species has so far been found in the Várzea , i.e. in areas that are periodically flooded by white water rivers due to the seasonal fluctuations in water levels . Terra Firme (“solid land”), the regions outside the flood regime of the large rivers, seem to avoid the species. It is also found in swamps, secondary forests and on agricultural land. The adaptability required for this may result from the usual seasonal migrations from flooded areas to dry land. The four-eyed black rat, on the other hand, is restricted to primary forests.