Mus leptosoma Brants, 1827

Garbino, Guilherme S. T. & Nogueira, Marcelo R., 2017, On the mammals collected by Friedrich Sellow in Brazil and Uruguay (1814 – 1831), with special reference to the types and their provenance, Zootaxa 4221 (2), pp. 172-190 : 181

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.

Figures

FIGURE 4. Type specimens of small rodents collected by Friedrich Sellow in Brazil: a) Mus auritus Lichtenstein; b) Mus nigrita Lichtenstein; c) Mus vulpinus Brants, and d) Mus leptosoma Brants. Scale bar = 10 mm.