RESEARCH PAPER
Two new species of Rhipidomys (Rodentia: Sigmodontinae) from Eastern Brazil, with comments on the taxonomy of the genus
 
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1
Programa de Pós Graduação em Biodiversidade Ambiente e Saúde, Centro de Estudos Superiores de Caxias, Universidade Estadual do Maranhão
 
2
Laboratório de Zoologia de Vertebrados, Escola Superior de Agricultura “Luiz de Queiroz”, Universidade de São Paulo
 
3
Instituto Federal Rio Grande do Sul, Campus Rio Grande
 
4
Laboratório de Mamíferos, Departamento de Sistemática e Ecologia, Universidade Federal da Paraíba
 
 
Online publication date: 2022-05-31
 
 
Publication date: 2022-05-31
 
 
Corresponding author
Bruno Augusto Torres Parahyba Campos   

Programa de Pós Graduação em Biodiversidade Ambiente e Saúde, Centro de Estudos Superiores de Caxias, Universidade Estadual do Maranhão
 
 
Hystrix It. J. Mamm. 2022;33(2):139-157
 
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ABSTRACT
The cricetid rodent genus Rhipidomys belongs to the tribe Thomasomyini, subfamily Sigmodontinae, whose distribution covers high- and lowlands areas of South America. In a number of contributions to the taxonomy and systematics of the genus, 24 species of Rhipidomys were recognized by different authors until now. Here we identify 13 species of the lowland “leucodactylus” section from Brazil and named two new forms of this genus based on morphological and molecular data. One of these forms is only found at municipality of Bezerros, Pernambuco state, while the other has a more extensive distribution, being recorded in northern Goiás, west of Tocantins, southern Piauí, western portion of Bahia and northern region of Minas Gerais states. These two new species can be distinguished from the others of the genus by qualitative and quantitative characters although, like most other Brazilian species of Rhipidomys, they do not exhibit an autapomorphic characters. These species are diagnosed by unique combinations of character states that are operational and useful for species recognition. In general, the most valuable character sets to differentiate Rhipidomys species are found in the skull, external morphology being strongly variable and showing overlapping sets of characters. We compared the two new species with all Brazilian species of the “leucodactylus” section and added taxonomic comments and their phylogenetic relationships.
eISSN:1825-5272
ISSN:0394-1914
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