Pteronura brasiliensis (Gmelin, 1788) . In Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., 13th ed., 1:93.

TYPE LOCALITY: "in fluviis americae meridionalis"; Cabrera (1958:274) restricted to "rió Sâo Francisco, en la orilla correspondiente al estado de Alagoas ", Brazil .

DISTRIBUTION: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela.

STATUS: CITES - Appendix I; U.S. ESA - Endangered; IUCN - Vulnerable.

SYNONYMS: lupina Thomas, 1889; nitens Olfers, 1818; paraguensis Schinz, 1821; paranensis Rengger, 1830; paroensis Lesson, 1842; sambachii Schinz, 1844; sanbachii Wiegmann, 1838 .

COMMENTS: See lengthly comments by Harris (1968) concerning the correct identity of the type, the confusion in published synonomies, and the type locality.