Coendou bicolor ( Tschudi, 1844 )

Velazco, Paúl M. & Patterson, Bruce D., 2019, Small Mammals Of The Mayo River Basin In Northern Peru, With The Description Of A New Species Of Sturnira (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae), Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2019 (429), pp. 1-69 : 52-53

Coendou bicolor ( Tschudi, 1844)

VOUCHER MATERIAL: Waqanki: 1 subadult of unknown sex ( MUSM 39287 ) ; see table 25 for measurements.

IDENTIFICATION: Description and measurements of Coendou bicolor have been provided by Anderson (1997), Voss (2011, 2015), and Barthelmess (2016). No subspecies are currently recognized in C. bicolor ( Voss, 2015; Barthelmess, 2016). Our Mayo River basin specimen is a subadult, and all measurements of this individual fall outside or at the lower end of the range of variation previously reported for the species. Nonetheless, our specimen exhibits all the diagnostic characteristics of the species (e.g., quills uniformly bicolored and abruptly shorter on lower back and rump than on shoulders and upper back; frontal sinuses inflated; and roof of external auditory meatus smooth) ( Voss, 2015; Barthelmess, 2016). Based on the analysis of cytochrome b sequences, Voss et al. (2013) confirmed the identification our specimen as Coendou bicolor .

REMARKS: Our specimen was shot at night (22:15 hr) while it was feeding on a tree above a stream. Nava et al. (2010) identified Amblyomma longirostre ticks collected from our specimen. These ticks represent the first record of this ectoparasite in Peru ( Nava et al., 2010).