Amazonian Marsh Rat – Holochilus sciureus

Holochilus sciureusWagner, 1842

Accepted name, Mammal Species of the World 2005

"Discrimination from H. brasiliensis documented by Massoia (1980a, 1981), who raised sciureus to specific rank. Many forms swept under Hershkovitz’s (1955a) concept of brasiliensis actually belong to this ""species,"" which itself is a composite—e.g., Amazonian populations characterized by a 2n = 55-56 (Patton et al., 2000), but Venezuelan populations characterized by 2n = 44 (Aguilera and Perez-Zapata, 1989). The latter authors, and Aguilera et al. (1993), have recognized H. venezuelae as a species, but Linares (1998) continued to employ H. sciureus for those same series, acknowledging venezuelae as a subspecies. In addition to venezuelae, Reig (1986) listed amazonicus and guianae as probable valid species. The persisting disagreement over number of valid species, uncertain correspondence of karyotypic variants to definable morphologies, and vagueness of distributional limits will only be il... [truncated]"

• Wilson, D and Reeder, D. (eds.) 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. 3rd ed. -- 2142 pp. Johns Hopkins University Press.