Dasyprocta azarae Lichtenstein, 1823

Garbino, Guilherme S. T. & Nogueira, Marcelo R., 2017, On the mammals collected by Friedrich Sellow in Brazil and Uruguay (1814 – 1831), with special reference to the types and their provenance, Zootaxa 4221 (2), pp. 172-190 : 180-181

Dasyprocta azarae Lichtenstein, 1823 (ZMB_MAM 1044, 1045)

The two syntypes are from São Paulo. ZMB _MAM 1044 is an adult, mounted skin, with the skull inside ( Fig 6 ) . ZMB_MAM 1045—a flat skin, with skull—is a subadult, with the basioccipital–basisphenoid suture open and M3 partially erupted. For nomenclatural purposes, and acknowledging that pelage color is an important character for the taxonomy of dasyproctids (see Patton & Emmons 2015), we here designate specimen ZMB_MAM 1044, the most well preserved skin, as the lectotype.

Lichtenstein described this agouti in his catalogue of the museum’s duplicates ( Lichtenstein 1823:3). In the original publication, Lichtenstein stated that he based the name on Azara’s (1801) l’acouti, and gives a brief description, comparing it with Cavia Aguti (= Dasyprocta leporina ). He also mentioned that the specimens came from São Paulo.

Because the Generalkatalog, specimen labels, and Lichtenstein’s (1823) description all indicate that the specimens came from São Paulo, the type locality can be reliably assigned to this state. If a further restriction is warranted, we suggest restricting the type locality to between 49°20’W and 44°11’W, which encompasses the route traveled by Sellow in the state of São Paulo . The western portion of São Paulo remained relatively unexplored until the last decades of the 19th century.

Figures

FIGURE 6. Lectotype of Dasyprocta azarae Lichtenstein (ZMB _ MAM 1044), from São Paulo. Note the greenish-blue label, used in the old ZMB labeling as the color-code for America (Voss and Angermann 1997).