Geographic variation in hairy dwarf porcupines of Coendou from eastern Brazil (Mammalia: Erethizontidae)

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 Espírito Santo, reaching the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil; C. spinosus extends from the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito 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

Integrative systematics of Neotropical porcupines ofCoendou prehensiliscomplex (Rodentia: Erethizontidae)

“…The 14 remaining morphotypes belong to the genus Coendou . Three represent the hairy dwarf porcupines of eastern Brazil: two of them consist of C. spinosus , as previously reported by Caldara Júnior and Leite (2012), and one refers to C. insidiosus . Seven morphotypes represent fully recognized species of Coendou : C. melanurus (Wagner, 1842), C. roosmalenorum , C. ichillus , C. bicolor (Tschudi, 1844), C. nycthemera (Olfers, 1818), C. speratus , and C. quichua Thomas, 1899.…”

“…Scatterplot of the first and second principal components (top panel), the first and second discriminant axes (centre), and the first and third discriminant axes (bottompanel) of the log-transformed cranial measurements of the Coendou prehensilis complex clustered by morphotypes correspondingto species/subspecies. (Caldara Júnior & Leite, 2012). Therefore, our study shows that the location and banding pattern of each type of quill on the porcupine dorsum have proven to be of high value as diagnostic characters.…”

“…Cranial measurements were taken with digital calipers to the nearest 0.01 mm following the criteria described by Voss and da Silva (2001), and we added two new measurements: the anterior height of rostrum (AHR, anterior extreme of upper incisive foramen to nasal tip), and the posterior height of rostrum (PHR, anterior base of the zygomatic process of the jugal to the nasal above the lacrimal location; see Figure for details). We assumed there is no sexual dimorphism in porcupine species following the findings of Caldara Júnior and Leite (2012) for the C. insidiosus complex. We considered only adult specimens for the description of morphotypes.…”

“…Three monographs were published about the family's taxonomy (Voss, 2011(Voss, , 2015Voss & Angermann, 1997;Voss & da Silva, 2001). Geographic variation was examined and detailed for hairy dwarf porcupines of eastern Brazil, Coendou spinosus (F. Cuvier, 1823) and Coendou insidiosus (Olfers, 1818) (Caldara Júnior & Leite, 2012). Four species were described as follows: Coendou ichillus Voss & da Silva, 2001, Coendou roosmalenorum Voss & da Silva, 2001, Coendou speratus Mendes Pontes et al, 2013, and Coendou baturitensis Feijó & Langguth, 2013 Additionally, phylogenetic relationships among some erethizontid species have been inferred by molecular data Leite et al, 2011;.…”

Clinical Manifestation, Histopathology, and Imaging of Traumatic Injuries Caused by Brazilian Porcupine (Sphiggurus villosus) Quills

“…The barbs at the tips of spines facilitate skin penetration and fixation, hampering their removal [4, 10, 11]. These barbs are elevated when the spine is pulled out, thus increasing injury.…”