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Rarity and conservation status of the Colombian Speckled Tree Rat, Pattonomys semivillosus (I. Geoffroy, 1838)

  • Julio J. Chacón-Pacheco ORCID logo EMAIL logo , Julián Lozano-Flórez ORCID logo , Luis Jose Avendaño-Maldonado ORCID logo , Javier Racero-Casarrubia ORCID logo , Laura Montoya-Patiño ORCID logo and Héctor Emilio Ramírez-Chaves ORCID logo
Published/Copyright: November 22, 2022
Mammalia
From the journal Mammalia Volume 87 Issue 1

Abstract

The Colombian Speckled Tree Rat, Pattonomys semivillosus, is a little-known rodent endemic to the Lower Magdalena River basin at the Caribbean Coast of Colombia. To date it is the only species of Pattonomys documented in the country. We provide information on the rarity, and conservation status of P. semivillosus based on the current and potential distribution, population density and size using information from the literature, new records, and museum vouchers. We confirmed 66 occurrences that belong to 25 localities in six departments (Atlántico, Bolívar, Cesar, La Guajira, Magdalena, Santander, and Sucre) in northern Colombia, including 18 new localities not previously reported in the literature, mostly in the highly threatened Tropical Dry Forest ecosystem. The population density in three sites of Department of Cesar was 5.4 ind/km2, 5.9 ind/km2, and 32.4 ind/km2. The species matches with the Category D of rarity, and we suggest an update to the threatened assessment (from Least Concern to Near Threatened). This information will contribute to update the current IUCN assessment of the species.

Keywords: assessment; Caribbean; distribution; endemic; Rodentia; threats
Corresponding author: Julio J. Chacón-Pacheco, Grupo de Investigación Biodiversidad Unicórdoba, Universidad de Córdoba, Carrera 6 No. 76-103, Cod. Postal 230002, Montería, Córdoba, Colombia; and Laboratorio de Ecología Funcional Unidad de Ecología y Sistemática (UNESIS), Laboratorio de Ecología Funcional, Facultad de Ciencias, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cod. Postal 110231, Bogotá, Colombia, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

We thank the company Prodeco S. A. S and Fundación para la Investigación y el Manejo de los Recursos Hidrobiológicos de la Región Caribe Colombiana George Dahl for facilitating the use of information resulting from rescue activities in mining advance processes in the Department of Cesar, Colombia. Jefferson Sánchez Castrillón, Fernando Rondón and Giovani Brigante-Luna for providing records and photographs of the species. Guillaume Laugier, Edgar Patiño and Mara Espinosa for his review and comments on the manuscript. Catalina Cárdenas provided information of some specimens from Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Bogotá.

  1. Author contributions: Julio Chacón-Pacheco carried out conceptualization, methodology, data curation, formal analysis, investigation and writing–original draft preparation of the paper. Julian Lozano-Flórez was involved in conceptualization, methodology and writing–reviewing of the paper. Luis J. Avendaño-Maldonado and Laura Montoya-Patiño carried out investigation in field. Javier Racero-Casarrubia contributed to conceptualization and investigation. Héctor Ramírez-Chaves was involved in conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, supervision and writing–reviewing and editing of the paper.

  2. Research funding: Not applicable.

  3. Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.

  4. Research ethics: All the methods used in this study follow the ethical guidelines established by the American Society of Mammalogists for specimens management and transport (Sikes and The Animal Care and Use Committee of the American Society of Mammalogists 2016). No sacrifice or mistreatment of animals handled in the field was incurred.

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Supplementary Material

The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/mammalia-2022-0070).

Received: 2022-06-23
Accepted: 2022-10-19
Published Online: 2022-11-22
Published in Print: 2023-01-27

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Biogeography
  3. Biogeography and conservation of desert warthog Phacochoerus aethiopicus and common warthog Phacochoerus africanus (Artiodactyla: Suidae) in the Horn of Africa
  4. How far westward? Revisiting the distribution of Arctonyx badgers in the westernmost global range
  5. Solitary, in the night, it goes: summary of records and range expansion of the common genet in Italy
  6. Conservation
  7. Rarity and conservation status of the Colombian Speckled Tree Rat, Pattonomys semivillosus (I. Geoffroy, 1838)
  8. Ecology
  9. Trophic structure and foraging strategies in a bat community in northern Pantanal, Brazil
  10. “Brown hare never goes underground”: the exception that proves the rule
  11. New records of the rare bushy-tailed opossum, Glironia venusta Thomas, 1912 (Didelphimorphia), in Brazil, with notes on the species’ diet
  12. First records of albinism and leucism in Ctenodactylus gundi (Rodentia: Ctenodactylidae)
  13. Paint it black: first record of melanism in Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis)
  14. Taxonomy/Phylogeny
  15. Morphological redescription, phylogenetic position, and distribution of the near threatened cavy Microcavia shiptoni (Thomas, 1925), with a key for the living species of Microcavia
  16. Taxonomic reassessment of the chaco mice of the genus Andalgalomys Williams and Mares, 1978 (Rodentia, cricetidae) with a redefinition of Andalgalomys olrogi Williams and Mares, 1978
  17. Annual Reviewer Acknowledgement
  18. Reviewer acknowledgement Mammalia volume 86 (2022)
https://doi.org/10.1515/mammalia-2022-0070
Keywords for this article
assessment; Caribbean; distribution; endemic; Rodentia; threats

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Biogeography
  3. Biogeography and conservation of desert warthog Phacochoerus aethiopicus and common warthog Phacochoerus africanus (Artiodactyla: Suidae) in the Horn of Africa
  4. How far westward? Revisiting the distribution of Arctonyx badgers in the westernmost global range
  5. Solitary, in the night, it goes: summary of records and range expansion of the common genet in Italy
  6. Conservation
  7. Rarity and conservation status of the Colombian Speckled Tree Rat, Pattonomys semivillosus (I. Geoffroy, 1838)
  8. Ecology
  9. Trophic structure and foraging strategies in a bat community in northern Pantanal, Brazil
  10. “Brown hare never goes underground”: the exception that proves the rule
  11. New records of the rare bushy-tailed opossum, Glironia venusta Thomas, 1912 (Didelphimorphia), in Brazil, with notes on the species’ diet
  12. First records of albinism and leucism in Ctenodactylus gundi (Rodentia: Ctenodactylidae)
  13. Paint it black: first record of melanism in Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis)
  14. Taxonomy/Phylogeny
  15. Morphological redescription, phylogenetic position, and distribution of the near threatened cavy Microcavia shiptoni (Thomas, 1925), with a key for the living species of Microcavia
  16. Taxonomic reassessment of the chaco mice of the genus Andalgalomys Williams and Mares, 1978 (Rodentia, cricetidae) with a redefinition of Andalgalomys olrogi Williams and Mares, 1978
  17. Annual Reviewer Acknowledgement
  18. Reviewer acknowledgement Mammalia volume 86 (2022)
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