Marmosops (Sciophanes) pakaraimae Voss et al., 2013

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 : 52

Marmosops (Sciophanes) pakaraimae Voss et al., 2013

TYPE MATERIAL AND TYPE LOCALITY: ROM 115129, the holotype by original designation, consists of the skin, skull, postcranial skeleton, and preserved tissues of an adult male collected at “Second Camp” (5.28° N, 60.75° W, 800 m), an expeditionary site on Mount Roraima, Cuyuni- Mazaruni Region, Guyana.

SYNONYMS: None.

DISTRIBUTION: Marmosops pakaraimae is definitely known from just five localities in the contiguous highlands of western Guyana and eastern Venezuela from 800 to about 1500 m above sea level ( Voss et al., 2013: fig. 1). Silva et al.’s (2017) report of this species from the Rio Japurá—in the Amazonian lowlands of western Brazil, over 1100 km from the closest verified collection locality in eastern Venezuela —is almost certainly in error; the specimen in question (SISJAP-M-705, at INPA) should be reexamined to determine its correct identification.

REMARKS: For illustrations, description, measurement data, and morphological comparisons with closely related congeners, see Voss et al. (2013). This species was assigned to the Parvidens Group of the subgenus Sciophanes by Díaz-Nieto and Voss (2016) based on analyses of DNA sequence data previously reported by Díaz-Nieto et al. (2016b). Within the Parvidens Group, M. pakaraimae is the sister species of M. parvidens .