Mustela frenata Lichtenstein, 1831

VOSS, ROBERT S., 2003, A New Species of Thomasomys (Rodentia: Muridae) from Eastern Ecuador, with Remarks on Mammalian Diversity and Biogeography in the Cordillera Oriental, American Museum Novitates 3421, pp. 1-48 : 19

Mustela frenata Lichtenstein

SPECIMENS COLLECTED: None.

OTHER MATERIAL: I examined two specimens from the Stockholm museum collected by L. Söderström in 1918. One ( NHRS A58 / 6157) is an adult male labeled ‘‘side of Guamani near Papallacta 11,000 ft’’ [3353 m], and the other ( NHRS A58 /6145) is an adult female labeled ‘‘below Papallacta 9000 ft’’ [2743 m]; both are skins and skulls in good condition .

TAXONOMY: Lönnberg (1921) and Hall (1951) examined the material described above and provided qualitative descriptions and measurements in their systematic accounts. However, whereas Lönnberg identified the local population as Mustela macrura Taczanowski (1874) , Hall treated macrura and other South American long­tailed weasels as subspecies of M. frenata (the type locality of which is in Mexico). Hall’s concept of frenata (the basis for Wozencraft’s [1993] synonymy) implies genetic continuity among populations of long­tailed weasels from Canada to Bolivia, a hypothesis that has yet to be tested by any geographically extensive analysis of morphometric or molecular data.

REMARKS: Although uncommon and rarely seen, weasels are locally regarded as pests that enter houses to kill domesticated guinea pigs ( Cavia porcellus ). Hall (1951: 402) incorrectly copied the locality of NHRS A58/ 6157 as ‘‘Nára [sic] Papallacta’’ from the Swedish museum label rather than from Söderström’s original (English) specimen tag.

5 Kipp’s (1965) paper, cited as a generic revision by Wozencraft (1993), only analyzed character data from Patagonian material.