The mammalian faunas endemic to the Cerrado and the Caatinga
Author
Gutierrez, Eliecer E.
Author
Marinho-Filho, Jader
text
ZooKeys
2017
644
105
157
http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.644.10827
journal article
http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.644.10827
1313-2970-644-105
74090DD89F994A5692654E3255D7538B
Galea spixii (Wagler, 1831)
Distribution.
Galea spixii
is endemic to the Caatinga, and has been recorded in the Brazilian states of Alagoas, Bahia,
Ceara
, Minas Gerais,
Para
, Pernambuco,
Sao
Paulo (
Bezerra 2008
,
Norgueira et al. 2015
,
Dunnum 2015
and references therein).
Taxonomy.
Some authors have regarded
Galea spixii
and
Galea flavidens
as different species (
Ellerman 1941
,
Bonvicino et al. 2005
,
Weksler and Bonvicino 2008a
,
Dunnum 2015
); however the latter species has never been incorporated into a phylogenetic study based on molecular data (e.g.,
Dunnum and Salazar-Bravo 2010
), and a modern morphological study that included all extant species in the genus did not find differences to distinguish
Galea flavidens
from
Galea spixii
(
Bezerra 2008
; but see
Bonvicino et al. 2008
). We follow
Bezerra (2008)
in treating
Galea flavidens
as a junior synonym of
Galea spixii
. The same author also found that populations
currently
referred to as
Galea spixii
actually might be composed by multiple valid species (
Bezerra 2008
).
Conservation status.
The red list of the IUCN ver. 3.1 assigned the category "Least Concern" to
Galea spixii
(see
Catzeflis et al. 2016a
). The species was not included in the official list of threatened species of Brazil (
ICMBIO-MMA 2016
).