Mysateles prehensilis (Poeppig 1824)

[Capromys] prehensilis Poeppig 1824, J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 4: 11.

Type Locality: Cuba, wooded south coast.

Vernacular Names: Prehensile-tailed Hutia.

Subspecies::

Subspecies Mysateles prehensilis subsp. prehensilis Poeppig 1824

Subspecies Mysateles prehensilis subsp. gundlachi Chapman 1901

Distribution: Cuba, mainly west of Camaguey Province. The status of this species in the eastern provinces (old Oriente Prov.) is not clear.

Conservation: IUCN – Vulnerable as M. gundlachi, Lower Risk (lc) as M. prehensilis . Common.

Discussion: Placed in subgenus Mesocapromys by Mohr (1939:54) and Varona (1974), and in the genus and subgenus Mysateles by Kratochvíl et al. (1978:15). This is the largest species of Mysateles . Mysateles gundlachi was described on the basis of the baculum, which is distinctly broad-based unlike that of M. meridionalis . Based on levels of sequence divergence, Woods et al. (2001) considered gundlachi as an insular subspecies of M. prehensilis, which we follow here. Karyotype has 2n=34; FN=54-56 (Milišnokov et al., 1990).