Mammals Of The Rio Juruá And The Evolutionary And Ecological Diversification Of Amazonia
Author
PATTON, JAMES L.
Author
DA SILVA, MARIA NAZARETH F.
Author
MALCOLM, JAY R.
text
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History
2000
2000-01-25
2000
244
1
306
http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1206%2F0003-0090(2000)244%3C0001%3AMOTRJA%3E2.0.CO%3B2
journal article
10.1206/0003-0090(2000)244<0001:MOTRJA>2.0.CO;2
0003-0090
5347311
Philander opossum
(Linnaeus, 1758)
TYPE
LOCALITY: ‘‘America,’’ restricted to
Surinam
by J.A. Allen (1900: 195); further
restricted to
Paramaribo
,
Surinam
, by Matschie (1916: 268).
DESCRIPTION: This species exhibits considerable geographic variation in coloration and pattern, and no review of this, or other aspects of character variation has yet been undertaken. Specimens from the
Rio Juruá
are uniformly gray with a creamy white venter a distinct blackened median stripe on the midback, and a naked tail: the proximal two thirds is black with pale blotches and the terminal 20% or less is light. The fur is short even along the midback, and coarse
;
the furred base of the tail is short, extending no more than 20% of the tail length. Selected external and cranial measurements are given in table 17. With the small sample available (
7 male
and
3 female
adults, respectively) significant sexual dimorphism is evident only in cranial depth (
CD
;
p
<0.05, oneway AN
OVA
)
.
COMPARISONS: This is a smaller animal than
P
.
mcilhennyi
, and distinctly different in coloration and pattern (see below). Cranially
P
.
opossum
is significantly smaller in overall skull length (condyloincisive length), in measure of the toothrow and palatal length (C to M4 length, M1 to M4 length, and palatal length), and in palatal width (distance between metastyles of M3; see table 17). In external measurements,
P
.
opossum
is significantly smaller in total length, length of the tail, and height of the ear (see table 17).
DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT: In the headwaters localities,
P
.
opossum
was truly sympatric (that is, found in adjacent trap stations) with
P
.
mcilhennyi
but apparently segregated from it by habitat downriver. Individuals taken in the Upper Central region (from Sacado and Nova Empresa, localities 5 and 8) were collected in várzea; all specimens but one taken in the Headwaters area were from the locally inundated margins of the river. This is in contrast to records of the black foureyed opossum,
P
.
mcilhennyi
, from the same areas (see below). We caught all specimens in traps placed on the ground, although
Philander
individuals were seen to climb on fallen logs and windfalls.
REPRODUCTION: Females with pouch young were collected only during the months of February and March, within the rainy season However, since only one individual (a male)
Fig. 58. Map of sample localities of species of pouched foureyed opossums (
Philander
) from the lowland forests of Middle America, Amazonia, and the Atlantic Forest. Localities are numbered or lettered as in table 16, which provides provenance data and catalog numbers of voucher specimens Approximate geographic limits to the ranges of the western Amazonian species
P
.
andersoni
and
P mcilhennyi
are indicated. Sample localities are grouped by symbol into the cytochromeb clades identified in fig. 59.
was taken during dry season months, little can be said about the seasonality of reproduction in this species. The modal number of young was 5 (range 4 to 5, n = 4). Literature reports on litter size vary from a mean of 3.4 (Eisenberg and Wilson, 1981) to 4.5 (Davis, 1947).
KARYOTYPE: 2n = 22, FN = 20 (fig. 40B). All chromosomes are uniarmed and form a graded series from large to small. This karyotype has been described and figured by Reig et al. (1977) and Palma and Yates (1996). Data are available for
two specimens
MNFS 623 and MNFS 998.
COMMENTS: Hershkovitz (1997: fig. 5) allocates specimens from western
Brazil
(including the Rio Jurua´, but for which he examined no specimens) to the nominate subspecies, while placing
canus
Osgood in synonymy with
quica
Temminck, a subspecies he maps to southeastern
Brazil
from
Rio de Janeiro
to
Uruguay
and northwest through the Paraná basin to eastern
Bolivia
and Peru´. In part because of cytochromeb sequence differences between our specimens from the Rio Juruá and those from
Guyana
, close to the
type
locality of
opossum
Linnaeus
, we have suggested elsewhere that western and eastern Amazonian
P
.
opossum
are distinct and should be recognized as such (Patton and da Silva, 1997). We have also shown that samples from southeastern
Brazil
are quite different from Amazonian ones (fig. 59; Pat ton and da Silva, 1997), and have suggested that
quica
Temminck, 1824 with its
type
locality in Estado do
Rio de Janeiro
, should be considered a synonym of
frenata
Olfers 1818
(
type
locality in Estado do
Bahia
,
Brazil
). Consequently, we apply the name
canus
to our samples from the Rio Jurua´.
Fig. 59. Strict consensus tree of 24 equally minimumlength parsimony trees of 660 bp sequences of the mitochondrial cytochromeb gene for haplotypes of
Philander
, rooted by comparison to sequences from
Micoureus
and
Marmosops
. Branch lengths are proportional to the number of character changes Haplotypes for specimens from the Rio Juruá are identified by heavy lines and bold type; numbers refer to the specific locality as identified in the text and the map, fig. 1. Numbers at nodes are bootstrap values, based on 1000 replicates; percentages are average Kimura twoparameter distances. Individual haplotypes are keyed by number or letter to localities as mapped in fig. 58 and listed by voucher specimen numbers in table 16. Tree length = 309 steps; CI = 0.709; RI = 0.863.
SPECIMENS EXAMINED (n = 14): (
1
) 1f — MNFS 1308; (
a
)
2m
, 2f — MNFS 998, 1031, 1047, 1054; (
b
)
2m
, 1f — MNFS 1039–1040, 1053; (
3
)
1m
— MNFS 1579;
(
4
)
1m
, 2f — MNFS 1453, 1465, 1528; (
5
)
1m
— MNFS 623; (
8
)
1m
— JLP 15395
.
Philander mcilhennyi
Gardner and Patton, 1972
TYPE
LOCALITY: ‘‘Balta, Río Curanja,’’
Departamento de Ucayali
(formerly in
Departamento de Loreto
), Peru´. DESCRIPTION: This is a larger animal than
P
.
opossum
in virtually all body and cranial measurements (table 17). Both the dorsum and venter are black; the middorsal hair is long and coarse; the haired portion at the base of the tail is long, averaging more than 25% of the tail length; the tail is black and lacks pale blotches, but approximately 47% of the terminal portion is generally paler. The lacrimals are expanded anteriorly, the poste rior aspect of the expanded portion of the nasals is distinctly notched, and the labial margin of M3 deeply indented. These characters conform to those presented by Gardner and Patton (1972) in their diagnosis and description of
P
.
mcilhennyi
. As with
P
.
opossum
, our samples of adult
P
.
mcilhennyi
also exhibit little sexual dimorphism, with significant differences between the sexes for only three cranial variables (CM4, M1M4, and
PW
;
p
<0.05 in each case by oneway AN
OVA
).
COMPARISONS: See section above for
P
.
opossum
. Comparisons of the color pattern of the face can be found in Hutterer et al. (1995).
DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT: All specimens taken at midriver localities came from terrestrial traps in terra firme forest (n = 8); those from the headwaters localities were taken, again all on the ground, in both terra firme (n = 4) and inundated forest along the banks (n = 4). In the latter habitat, this species was truly sympatric with the gray foureyed opossum,
P
.
opossum
.
REPRODUCTION: We recorded females with pouch young in the months of April and June at the
type
locality in eastern
Perú
(Gardner and Patton, 1972) and during July and August on the upper Rio Urucu in central Amazonas,
Brazil
(da Silva, unpubl. data). On the Rio Jurua´, pouch young were found at Penedo in the midriver in August and September and in the headwaters during February and March. The combination of data from these three areas suggests that the species breeds throughout the year. We caught very young independent individuals (age classes 1 and 2 of Gardner, 1982) in September, November, February, and March. Litter size varied from 4 to 7 with a mode of 5 young (n = 8).
KARYOTYPE: 2n = 22, FN = 20 (fig. 40C) The chromosomal complement is identical in every respect in gross chromosome morphology to that of
P
.
opossum
(see Reig, et al., 1977). Specimens karyotyped include MNFS 1103, 1410, 1435, JLP 15355, 15677, 15702.
SPECIMENS EXAMINED (n = 22): (
1
)
1m
, 2f
— MNFS 1103, 1196, 1271; (
2
)
1m
, 5f — MNFS 1185–1186, 1255, 1286, 1299, 1410; (
3
)
2m
— MNFS 1599, JUR 208; (
4
)
1m
, 2f — MNFS 1435, 1437, 1496; (
6
)
2m
— JLP 15677, 15702; (
7
)
2m
, 1f — JLP 15355
; MNFS 383, 402; (
9
)
1m
, 2f — JLP 16057, 16069, 16074
.
SUBFAMILY
CALUROMYINAE Kirsch, 1977
CALUROMYS
J. A. ALLEN, 1900
Woolly opossums