Shrew opossums (Paucituberculata: Caenolestes) from the Huancabamba region of east Andean Peru.

Abstract

Shrew opossums of the genus Caenolestes are restricted to the northern Andes and include four species: C. fuliginosus, C. convelatus, C. caniventer and C. condorensis (Albuja and Patterson 1996). Caenolestes fuliginosus is a highland species of the paramos of central Ecuador, Colombia and western Venezuela, but the remaining three species occur in sub-tropical montane forests at lower elevations (Albuja and Patterson 1996). Caenolestes convelatus and C. caniventer are known from the western slopes of the Andes, the former from Colombia and northern Ecuador and the latter from southern Ecuador and northern Peru (Bublitz 1987), while the recently described Caenolestes condorensis is currently known only from the isolated Cordillera del Condor along the eastern slopes of the Andes in southern Ecuador (Albuja and Patterson 1996). The first records of Caenolestes from Peru were collected in the Departamento de Piura (Barkley and Whitaker 1984) and were originally reported as C. fuliginosus but later were later identified as C. caniventer (Albuja and Patterson 1996). The Departamento de Piura lies just north of the Huancabamba Depression, a region defined by the arid valley of the Rio Chamaya and adjacent low elevation passes (Fig. 1). Many species of Andean bird reach their southernmost distributional limit at the Huancabamba Depression (Parker et al. 1985), and it has been postulated that the region might also serve as a barrier to the southward dispersal of Caenolestes (Vivar et al. 1997). However, these same authors also cautioned that the Huancabamba region remains poorly surveyed for mammals and that what may appear to be a pattern may in fact be the result of inadequate sampling. In this paper we present additional data on the distribution of Caenolestes from localities in Peru north and south of the Huancabamba Depression.