Published December 31, 1993 | Version v1
Taxonomic treatment Open

Oryzomys couesi

Description

Oryzomys couesi (Alston, 1877). Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1876:756 [1877].

TYPE LOCALITY: Guatemala, Alta Verapaz Dept., Coban.

DISTRIBUTION: Extreme S Texas, USA; Mexico, excluding NC plateau region, south through most of Central America, to NW Colombia (see Hershkovitz, 1987a); including Jamaica and Isla Cozumel.

SYNONYMS: albiventer, antillarum, apatelius, aquaticus, aztecus, azuerensis, bulleri, cozumelae, crinitus, fulgens, gatunensis, goldmani, jalapae, Iambi, mexicanus, peninsulae, peragrus, pinicola, regillus, richardsoni, richmondi, rufinus, rufus, teapensis, zygomaticus.

COMMENTS: Retained as a species by Goldman (1918) until Hall (1960) considered it only subspecifically distinct from O. palustris. Benson and Gehlbach (1979) returned O. couesi to specific status based on morphological contrasts with O. p. texensis in supposed area of intergradation. Karyotype reported by Benson and Gehlbach (1979) and Haiduk et al. (1979); morphometric comparisons to O. palustris by Humphrey and Setzer (1989).

Following Hall's (1960) example, other insular or localized subspecies—namely, antillarum, azuerensis, cozumelae, fulgens, gatunensis, and peninsulae (see Handley, 1966a; Hershkovitz, 1971; Jones and Lawlor, 1965)—were swept under O. palustris . They are here included in O. couesi because of geographic proximity, but their placement, together with other Central American populations referred to O. couesi , should be critically reviewed.

Notes

Published as part of Guy G. Musser & Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, pp. 501-755 in Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London :Smithsonian Institution Press on page 721, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7353098

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Linked records

Additional details

Related works

Biodiversity

Scientific name authorship
Alston
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Order
Rodentia
Family
Muridae
Genus
Oryzomys
Species
couesi
Taxon rank
species
Taxonomic concept label
Oryzomys couesi (Alston, 1877) sec. Musser & Carleton, 1993

References

  • Hershkovitz, P. 1987 a. First South American record of Coues' marsh rice rat, Oryzomys couesi. Journal of Mammalogy, 68: 152 - 154.
  • Goldman, E. A. 1918. The rice rats of North America (Genus Oryzomys). North American Fauna, 43: 1 - 100.
  • Hall, E. R. 1960. Oryzomys couesi only subspecifically different from the marsh rice rat, Oryzomys palustris. Southwestern Naturalist, 5: 171 - 173.
  • Benson, D. L., and F. R. Gehlbach. 1979. Ecological and taxonomic notes on the rice rat (Oryzomys couesi) in Texas. Journal of Mammalogy, 60: 225 - 228.
  • Haiduk, M. W., J. W. Bickham, and D. J. Schmidly. 1979. Karyotypes of six species of Oryzomys from Mexico and Central America. Journal of Mammalogy, 60: 610 - 615.
  • Humphrey, S. R., and H. W. Setzer. 1989. Geographic variation and taxonomic revision of rice rats (Oryzomys palustris and O. argentatus) of the United States. Journal of Mammalogy, 70: 557 - 570.
  • Handley, C. O., Jr. 1966 a. Checklist of the mammals of Panama. Pp. 753 - 795, in Ectoparasites of Panama, (R. L. Wenzel and V. J. Tipton, eds.). Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, 861 pp.
  • Hershkovitz, P. 1971. A new rice rat of the Oryzomys palustris group (Cricetinae, Muridae) from northwestern Colombia, with remarks on distribution. Journal of Mammalogy, 52: 700 - 709.
  • Jones, J. K., Jr., and T. E. Lawlor. 1965. Mammals from Isla Cozumel, Mexico, with description of a new species of harvest mouse. University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History, 16: 409 - 419.