Philander melanurus
| Philander melanurus | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Philander melanurus | ||||||||||||
| ( Thomas , 1899) |
Philander melanurus ( synonym : Metachirus fuscogriseus ) is a Beutelsäugerart from the family of opossums (Didelphidae). It occurs in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, as well as in Colombia and Ecuador west of the Andes.
description
Philander melanurus reaches a head body length of 24.3 to 30.5 cm, a tail length of 27.3 to 32 cm and a total length of 53 to 58.6 cm. The fur of the animals varies from dark gray to brown-black to blackish, the belly and the cheeks are whitish, cream-colored or yellowish. As with all four-eye pouch rats, there are a pair of whitish spots above the eyes. Philander melanurus is usually darker in color than Philander pallidus from northern Central America. The white area at the tip of the tail is smaller than in this species and, in contrast to Philander pallidus , in Philander melanurus there are also specimens with completely black or dark brown tails. The naked tail pouch rat is more gracefully built than Philander melanurus , has a longer tail (more than 33 cm long) and slimmer limbs.
.jpg)
Way of life
Little is known about the way of life of Philander melanurus . Like other four-eye pouch rats, the animals probably feed primarily on fruits and small animals. Stomach examinations in Panama found the fruits of the oil palm Elaeis oleifera and the remains of insects, freshwater shrimp and the spiny rat species Proechimys semispinosus . A specimen was photographed in Nicaragua while it was about to kill a poisonous coral otter ( Micrurus nigrocinctus ). In Nicaragua the opossum reproduces from February to October, in Panama the breeding season lasts from February to November.
Systematics
The species was first scientifically described in 1899 by the American zoologist Oldfield Thomas under the name Metachirus melanurus . Terra typica is the place Paramba on the Río Mira in northern Ecuador. In 1901, the American zoologist Joel Asaph Allen described another species of opossum from Greytown in Nicaragua under the name Metachirus fuscogriseus . Later both were listed as subspecies of the gray four-eyed rat ( Philander opossum ). The genus Metachirus now includes only one species, the nudibranch rat ( Metachirus nudicaudatus ). In a revision of the genus Philander published in January 2018 , Philander melanurus was used as an independent species, as its type specimens represent a haplotype that is clearly different from Philander pallidus and Philander opossum . Metachirus fuscogriseus is now a synonym for Philander melanurus . Philander melanurus and Philander pallidus are sister species and together form a clade that is a sister group to the South American four-eyed bag rats east of the Andes.
supporting documents
- ^ A b c Robert S. Voss, Juan F. Díaz-Nieto and Sharon A. Jansa. 2018. A Revision of Philander (Marsupialia: Didelphidae), Part 1: P. quica, P. canus, and A New Species from Amazonia. American Museum Novitates. Number 3891; 1-70. DOI: 10.1206 / 3891.1
- ^ A b Joel Asaph Allen: Descriptions of two new opposums of the genus Metachirus. (Metachirus fuscogriseus & pallidus). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History; v. 14, article 15 PDF
- ^ A b Alfred L. Gardner: Mammals of South America, Volume 1: Marsupials, Xenarthrans, Shrews, and Bats. University of Chicago Press, March 2008, ISBN 978-0226282404 (pp. 33 & 34)
- ↑ James L. Patton and Maria Nazareth F. da Silva: Definition of Species of Pouched Four-Eyed Opossums (Didelphidae, Philander). Journal of Mammalogy, Vol. 78, No. 1 (1997), DOI: 10.2307 / 1382642 (page 99)
- ↑ a b Diego Astua: Family Didelphidae (possums). Pages 70-186 in Don E. Wilson , Russell A. Mittermeier : Handbook of the Mammals of the World - Volume 5. Monotremes and Marsupials. Lynx Editions, 2015, ISBN 978-84-96553-99-6