Abstract
We evaluated geographic variation in New World porcupines of Coendou (Erethizontidae) from eastern Brazil by analyzing morphological data from museum specimens we identified as Coendou insidiosus and C. spinosus. Coendou insidiosus ranges from the states of Bahia to Espirito Santo, reaching the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil; C. spinosus extends from the states of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo to the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in Brazil, extending into Paraguay, Uruguay, and northeastern Argentina. Our results indicate that there are three spatially coherent, morphologically distinct groups, which can be diagnosed using a combination of discrete morphological characters, and which are supported by univariate and multivariate statistical analyses. We classified members of the Northern group as C. insidiosus, which usually have several pale to light-brown unicolor thin hairs covering the dorsal and lateral quills. They are cranially and externally smaller than the other two groups, and have shorter hairs and quills. Specimens of the Central group are intermediate in terms of body size, and fit the description of C. spinosus, which have thick hairs covering the dorsal and lateral quills. These hairs are dark-brown at the base, and grayish, orange, yellow or light brown at the tip. The Southern group has the largest size and we classified it as a geographic variant of C. spinosus based on the conspicuous presence of large quills on the dorsal surface, which vary from yellowish or orange to blackish.
Highlights
Rodents Erethizontidae Bonaparte, 1845 correspond to New World porcupines, commonly known as “ouriços-cacheiros” in Brazil, and are among the most taxonomically neglected New World mammals (VOSS 2011)
We evaluated geographic variation in New World porcupines of Coendou (Erethizontidae) from eastern Brazil by analyzing morphological data from museum specimens we identified as Coendou insidiosus and C. spinosus
The distribution of C. insidiosus ranges from the state of Sergipe southward to the state of Rio de Janeiro, including the eastern part of the state of Minas Gerais, whereas the distribution of C. spinosus is from the state of Espírito Santo southward to the state of Rio Grande do Sul, including Paraguay, northern Uruguay and northeastern Argentina (VOSS 2011)
Summary
We analyzed 182 specimens of Coendou spp. (180 skulls and/or skins and two whole specimens in fluid) from eastern Brazil, which were housed in scientific collections (see Appendix for a complete list of specimens examined). Adult specimens (including both adult and old adult age categories) were used in the analyses of morphological and morphometric characters. The software PAST (developed by HAMMER et al 2001) was used to analyze morphometric data In these analyses, we included measurements of four C. insidiosus specimens (including the holotype of Hystrix insidiousus) from VOSS & ANGERMANN (1997). We used only specimens with skull and skin preserved to generate discriminant functions because the a priori group classification was based on pelage characters. We generated distance matrices for cranial morphometric variables as a whole (multivariate), and for each cranial variable individually (univariate) These matrices were generated for the total sample and for each group of specimens separately. We considered significant plevels below 2.5% and above 97.5% (p < 0.025 and p > 0.975), because the Mantel test is two-tailed
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