Hippocamelus antisiensis (D’Orbigny)

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 : 20

Hippocamelus antisiensis (D’Orbigny)

SPECIMENS COLLECTED: None.

OTHER MATERIAL: An adult female specimen and a juvenile male, formerly preserved in the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (Madrid), were collected on Cerro Antisana in 1865 by M. Jiménez de la Espada. This material was originally reported by Cabrera (1917), whose taxonomic identification can be accepted as authoritative. Unfortunately, both specimens were lost during the Spanish Civil War or its aftermath, when the collections of the MNCN remained uncurated for several decades (J. Barreiro, personal commun).

REMARKS: The huemal is thought to be extinct in Ecuador ( Albuja, 1991), and only four specimens appear to have ever been collected there. Mysteriously, all are now lost. In addition to the Madrid specimens, a single skull (MACN 31.69) alleged to have come from eastern Ecuador was formerly preserved in Buenos Aires ( Tirira, 1999), and another specimen (from ‘‘Ecuador’’ without other locality data) was formerly in the FMNH ( Elliot, 1907).