Monodelphis (Monodelphis) brevicaudata (Erxleben, 1777)

Voss, Robert S., 2022, An Annotated Checklist Of Recent Opossums (Mammalia: Didelphidae), Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2022 (455), pp. 1-77 : 23-24

Monodelphis (Monodelphis) brevicaudata

(Erxleben, 1777)

TYPE MATERIAL AND TYPE LOCALITY: BMNH 67.4.12.540, the holotype by monotypy, consists of the fluid-preserved body and extracted skull of an adult female that was probably collected near Kartabo in northwestern Guyana ( Voss et al., 2001: 57).

SYNONYMS: brachyuros Schreber, 1777 ; dorsalis Allen, 1904; hunteri Waterhouse, 1841; orinoci Thomas, 1899 ; sebae Gray, 1827.

DISTRIBUTION: Monodelphis brevicaudata , in the strict sense that this species is now understood, occurs in Venezuela (south and east of the Orinoco), northwestern Guyana, and northern Brazil (north of the Rio Negro and west of the Rio Branco; Pavan et al., 2012: fig 6).

REMARKS: Abreu et al. (2017) commented on the difficulty of phenotypically distinguishing Monodelphis brevicaudata from M. arlindoi along the lower Rio Jufari in Roraima, Brazil. Because the distinction between these species was largely based on mtDNA sequencing ( Pavan et al., 2012), genetic evidence from nuclear markers would be welcome to test the hypothesis that these are distinct species.