Calomys boliviae Thomas 1901

Calomys boliviae Thomas 1901, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 7, 8: 253.

Type Locality: Bolivia, La Paz Dept., Río Solocame, 1200 m.

Vernacular Names: Bolivian Laucha.

Synonyms: Calomys fecundus (Thomas 1926) .

Distribution: E Andean slopes, ca. 600-2700 m, in WC Bolivia and NW Argentina.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Conventionally arranged as a subspecies or synonym of C. callosus (Cabrera, 1961; Hershkovitz, 1962). Use here follows informal listing of Reig (1986), who included fecundus as a subjective synonym, an attribution supported by their morphological similarity (Olds, 1988). Anderson (1997), following Olds (1988), treated boliviae and fecundus as synonyms of C. venustus, type locality in Córdoba, Argentina. The specific segregation of fecundus (2n = 54), as based strictly on S Bolivian and NW Argentinian samples, from C. venustus (2n = 56) is sustained by differentiation in karyotypes and mitochondrial DNA sequence analyses (Salazar-Bravo et al., 2001, 2002 a); however, the proper application of boliviae as senior synonym or its recognition as another valid species distinct from fecundus deserves concrete demonstration, as does its distributional extent with regard to C. venustus in NW Argentina.