On the mammals collected by Friedrich Sellow in Brazil and Uruguay (1814 – 1831), with special reference to the types and their provenance
Author
Garbino, Guilherme S. T.
Author
Nogueira, Marcelo R.
text
Zootaxa
2017
4221
2
172
190
journal article
37302
10.5281/zenodo.248623
1bdf89cc-ca41-4094-a65a-bf6c59ca96af
1175-5326
248623
35BBFC9F-A97E-4E08-A294-F8F6D381A7B7
Mus leptosoma
Brants, 1827
(ZMB_MAM 1184)
When Desmarest (1817) described his “silky spiny rat”,
Echimys setosus
, he only mentioned “Amérique” as the locality. Lichtenstein (1820:192) described
Loncheres myosuros
from
Bahia
based on specimens collected by
Freyreiss. Subsequently
,
Brants
(1827:150)
, crediting Lichtenstein as the author of the taxon, described
Mus leptosoma
, stating that the species occurs in
Bahia
, and that the
types
are in the Berlin Museum. Later,
Lichtenstein (1830)
redescribed
Mus leptosoma
based on specimens collected by
Freyreiss
in
Bahia
and by
Sellow
in
São Paulo
.
ZMB
_MAM 1184 is clearly identifiable as
Trinomys setosus
(
Fig. 4
d).
Label
information reads
Sellow
collected the specimen in
São Paulo
.
ZMB
_MAM 1184 is marked as the
type
of
Loncheres myosuros
and
Mus leptosoma
in the catalog, whereas specimen
ZMB
_MAM 1185, collected by
Freyreiss
in
Bahia
, is also a
Trinomys setosus
.
We
can assume that both specimens were used by
Brants
and
Lichtenstein
to describe
Mus leptosoma
, and thus are both
syntypes
of that taxon.
Moojen
(1948)
considered the names
Loncheres myosuros
Lichtenstein, 1820
and
Mus leptosoma
Brants, 1827
as
incertae sedis
, but subsequent reports treated these two names as junior synonyms of
Echimys setosus
Desmarest
(
Iack-Ximenes 2005
;
Pessôa
et al.
2015
).
We
have considered the possibility that
Mus leptosoma
was composed of more than one species, but both
syntypes
, ZMB_MAM 1184 and ZMB_MAM 1185, have been confirmed as
Trinomys setosus
by us and other authors (
Iack-Ximenes 2005
).
The species is known from
Bahia, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro
.
However
, this taxon has not been found in the state of
São Paulo
, where
Trinomys dimidiatus
and
T. iheringi
occur.
Therefore
, we consider more plausible that the supposed provenance of specimen
ZMB
_MAM 1184 is erroneous.