An Annotated Checklist Of Recent Opossums (Mammalia: Didelphidae)
Author
Voss, Robert S.
text
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History
2022
2022-04-04
2022
455
1
77
https://bioone.org/journals/bulletin-of-the-american-museum-of-natural-history/volume-455/issue-1/0003-0090.455.1.1/An-Annotated-Checklist-of-Recent-Opossums-Mammalia-Didelphidae/10.1206/0003-0090.455.1.1.full
journal article
10.1206/0003-0090.455.1.1
0003-0090
7161371
Monodelphis
(
Monodelphis
)
palliolata
(Osgood, 1914)
TYPE MATERIAL AND TYPE LOCALITY:
FMNH 20524
, the
holotype
by original designation, consists of the skin and skull of an adult male collected at
San Juan de Colón
(
8.03° N
,
72.27° W
; ca.
760 m
),
Táchira state
,
Venezuela
.
SYNONYMS: None.
DISTRIBUTION:
Monodelphis palliolata
occurs north and west of the Orinoco River in
Venezuela
, and it probably also occurs in eastern
Colombia
. Collection localities for this species include those recognized as such by Pine and Handley (2008: map 44) as well as those they attributed to “species A” (Pine and Handley, 2008: map 38). This species occurs in both rainforest and savannas.
REMARKS: For an emended description of
Monodelphis palliolata
and morphological comparisons with closely related congeners, see
Pavan et al. (2012)
. Specimens collected in the Llanos are paler than otherwise similar specimens collected in adjacent forested regions, and this pale savanna phenotype was formerly identified as
M. orinoci
by Venezuelan authors. However,
orinoci
is a synonym of
M. brevicaudata
sensu stricto
(
Voss et al., 2001
;
Pavan et al., 2012
), so the savanna phenotype lacks a name. Pine and Handley (2008: 106) referred to this form as “
Monodelphis
[species A],” but examined specimens exhibit the distinctive caudal pelage traits and color pattern of
M. palliolata
, and phylogenetic analyses of cytochrome
b
sequence data suggest that “species A” is nothing more than an ecotype of the present species (
Pavan et al., 2014
).