Order Rodentia - Family Cricetidae
Author
Wilson, Don E.
Author
Reeder, DeeAnn
text
2005
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 2
955
1189
book chapter
0-8018-8221-4
10.5281/zenodo.7316535
Oryzomys legatus
Thomas 1925
Oryzomys legatus
Thomas 1925
,
Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 9, 15: 577
.
Type Locality:
Bolivia
,
Tarija
Dept., CaraparÃ,
1000 m
.
Vernacular Names:
Tarija
Oryzomys
.
Distribution:
E Andean slopes of SC
Bolivia
and NW
Argentina
.
Conservation:
IUCN
– Lower Risk (lc).
Discussion:
Considered conspecific with
O. capito
(=
O. megacephalus
) (Cabrera, 1961;
Hershkovitz, 1960
), viewed as a probable synonym of
O. nitidus
(
Gardner and Patton, 1976
)
, or retained as a species (
Gyldenstolpe, 1932
;
Mares et al., 1989
b
;
Massoia, 1975
;
Musser and Carleton, 1993
). Musser et al. (1998) acknowledged the morphological distinctiveness of
legatus
but ultimately arranged it within a broadly defined
O. russatus
, a related form of the
nitidus
species group. This proposed relationship finds no support from trees derived from cytochrome
b
sequences (
Patton et al., 2000
), in which specimens of
legatus
fall among those of
O. nitidus
proper, not with
O. russatus
from SE
Brazil
. In view of the pronounced morphometric differentiation of
legatus
and
nitidus
in SC
Bolivia
(Musser et al., 1998:208-218), we follow
Patton et al. (2000)
in regarding both as species and stress that the lack of reciprocal monophyly between the respective data sets invites further study.