Xerus erythropus Desmarest, 1817

Robert S. Hoffmann & Charles G. Anderson, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Sciuridae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 419-465 : 458

Xerus erythropus Desmarest, 1817 . In Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat., Nouv. ed., 10:110.

TYPE LOCALITY: Senegal (neotype). Origin of original type unknown. "Inconnue."

DISTRIBUTION: SE Morocco, S Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, S Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, SE Niger, NE Nigeria, Cameroon, NE Congo, SE Chad, NE Central African Republic, Sudan, Zaire, NW Uganda, Rwanda, W Ethiopia, W Kenya, N Tanzania .

SYNONYMS: agadius (Thomas and Hinton, 1921); albovittatus (Desmarest, 1817); chadensis (Thomas, 1905); fulvior (Thomas, 1905); lacustris (Thomas, 1905); lessonii (Fitzinger, 1867, new name for marabutus Lesson); leucoumbrinus (Riippell, 1835); limitaneus (Thomas and Hinton, 1923); maestus (Thomas, 1910); marabutus (Lesson, 1838); microdon Thomas, 1905; prestigiator (Lesson, 1838).

COMMENTS: Placed in Euxerus which is considered a subgenus of Xerus by Ellerman (1940), Moore (1959), and Amtmann (1975). The name erythopus or erythropus is commonly attributed to E. Geoffroy, 1803. Cat. Mamm. Mus. Hist. Nat., Paris, p. 178, who gave the name as erythopus; however, this work was never published and is therefore unavailable (see Appendix I). The next available use of the name erythopus was by Desmarest, 1817. Shinz, 1845, used the spelling erythropus . Opinion 945 of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (1971) ruled that erythopus Geoffroy, 1803 be changed to erythropus as an incorrect original spelling. The proper latin root is "erythro". In the last 100 years nearly all authors have used the spelling erythropus . In the interest of orthographic stability we advocate that the specific name be spelled erythropus . It is not desirable to perpetuate the lapsus in spelling by early workers.