First records of Peruvian Toro, Toromys rhipidurus Thomas, 1928 (Rodentia, Echimyidae), in Colombia

Abstract

Although taxonomy, ecology, and natural history information of the arboreal spiny rats is available, many gaps in some species distribution still exist. We report here the first records of the Peruvian Toro, Toromys rhipidurus (Thomas, 1928), in southern Colombia. This arboreal spiny rat was only known from the Peruvian Amazonia. These new records extend the known geographical distribution of the species by about 61 km northward from its nearest known locality, at Río Yavarí, Peru. In addition, we provide some notes on the natural history of the species.

First records of Echimys saturnus Thomas, 1928 (Rodentia, Echimyidae) for the Peruvian Yungas

“…A few years ago, E. saturnus was considered a very rare species with a geographic distribution restricted to lowland and premontane forests (Emmons and Feer 1997;Emmons et al 2015); however, our new records suggest its rarity in other ecoregions is more likely due to inadequate sampling. For example, similarly to other arboreal echimyid rodents, E. saturnus is a nocturnal species that uses the canopy and hollow trees as refugees near watercourses and conserved forests (Emmons and Feer 1997;Lozano-Flórez and Cifuentes-Acevedo 2020). For this reason, we recommend the use of traps in the canopy, although these are difficult to set in rapid inventories, especially in the Amazon region.…”

Tipulodes annae Przybyłowicz, 2003 (Lepidoptera, Erebidae), citizen science and its rediscovery in the wild.

“…But it has also been used to detect diseases, for example in Rhizophora mangle Linnaeus, 1753 (Rossi 2017). In Colombia, it has been used to report the new presence of a weasel, Neogale felipei Izor & de la Torre, 1978, in the Cordillera Occidental (Roux et al 2019), and it has added data on the natural history of Coendou rufescens (Gray, 1865) (Ramírez-Chaves et al 2020) and Toromys rhipidurus (Thomas, 1928) (Lozano-Flórez et al 2020. iNatualist has increased its use among both citizens and scientists.…”