First record of Rhagomys (Mammalia: Sigmodontinae) in Bolivia

Abstract

A recent monograph on the biological diversity of Bolivia concludes that the country is megadiverse (Ibisch and Merida, 2003); this statement is especially true for mammals. Despite being a landlocked country and representing only 6% of the geographic area of South America, Bolivia harbors the 4th mostdiverse mammalian fauna of the continent (Ceballos and Simmonetti, 2002). However, the country remains poorly explored, as reports of new taxa for science or the country have recently been published (Pacheco et al., 2004; Rios-Uzeda et al., 2004; Solmsdorff et al., 2004; Emmons and Patton, 2005). These new records and species, coupled with further advances in the taxonomy and systematics on Neotropical mammals have rendered sections of Anderson’s book Mammals of Bolivia (Anderson, 1997) obsolete in less than a decade after its publication. Accordingly, in this paper, we report a new genus and species of mammal for the fauna of Bolivia. Measurements of the animal followed Luna and Patterson (2003) except for greatest length of skull (GLS), taken to be represented by the occipito-nasal length, and CML (Condylomolar length), which was not measured because it was not defined either by Luna and Patterson (2003) or any of the references cited therein (Myers et al., 1990; Voss, 1991 or Musser et al., 1998). Rhagomys longilingua Luna and Patterson, 2003