Toromys rhipidurus ( Thomas, 1928 )

Voss, Robert S., Fleck, David W. & Jansa, Sharon A., 2019, Mammalian Diversity And Matses Ethnomammalogy In Amazonian Peru Part 5. Rodents, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2024 (466), pp. 1-180 : 128

Toromys rhipidurus ( Thomas, 1928)

Figure 53

VOUCHER MATERIAL (N = 10): Amelia (FMNH 19854), Jenaro Herrera (AMNH 276710, MUSM 23823), Orosa (AMNH 74084–74086), Santa Cecilia (FMNH 87250–87252), San Pedro (UF 30447).

UNVOUCHERED OBSERVATIONS: Apparently none.

IDENTIFICATION: Toromys rhipidurus has spiny fur, but because the spines have soft tips, they do not feel sharp. The dorsal pelage is coarsely grizzled brownish, but the nose and (sometimes) the rump and tail base are reddish; the ventral fur is gray-based beige and does not contrast sharply in color with the back and sides. The tail is distinctively blackish in recently collected specimens, and it is densely covered with straight, stiff hairs that almost, but do not quite conceal the underlying scales. In these and other morphological details (including external and craniodental measurements; table 37), our voucher material fits the authoritative description of T. rhipidurus in Emmons and Fabre (2018: 38–39). 38

ETHNOBIOLOGY: The Matses have no special name for this species.

MATSES NATURAL HISTORY: No interviews were focused on this species.

REMARKS: The two specimens of Toromys rhipidurus from Jenaro Herrera were taken in seasonally flooded forest in the Río Ucayali floodplain. The only other specimen from our region accompanied by habitat information (UF 30447) was taken in “riverine vegetation” accord-

38 An earlier description of Toromys rhipidurus ( Emmons et al., 2015c: 930–931) was based on material that included specimens of T. albiventris Emmons and Fabre, 2018 .

ing to the skin tag. This specimen might be one of the seven individuals that Valqui (2001) sighted along a 1 km stretch of flooded forest while travelling at night by canoe near San Pedro. These scant habitat indications are consistent with the observations of Colombian researchers ( Lozano-Flórez and Cifuentes-Acevedo, 2020) that this species inhabits riparian (várzea and/or igapó) forest.