A new species of lutrine opossum, genus LutreolinaThomas (Didelphidae), from the South American Yungas

JUAN A.MARTÍNEZ-LANFRANCO; DAVID FLORES; PABLO JAYAT; D'ELIA, GUILLERMO

JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY

ALLIANCE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP DIVISION ALLEN PRESS

Lugar: Lawrence; Año: 2014 vol. 95 p. 225 - 240

0022-2372

This study presents the most comprehensive systematic revision of the genus Lutreolina to date, by means of genetic (mtDNA of 22 specimens) and morphologic (assessment of 262 specimens) evidence.Molecular analyses were based on cytochrome b sequences from 22 specimens collected at 18 localities from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, which are currently allocated to L. crassicaudata. Results indicate that Lutreolina has sharpphylogeographic structure, with 2 reciprocally monophyletic groups (2.7% divergent, whileintracladevariation is minimal) occurring east and west of the Dry Chaco, where Lutreolina is absent. The eastern clade includes populations from eastern Paraguay, northeast centralArgentina, southern Brazil, and Uruguay. These populations were traditionally allocated to the subspecies L. c. crassicaudata and L. c. paranalis, whose monophyly is not supported in our study.Therefore, eastern populations are all assigned here to the nominotypic subspecies. The western clade is restricted to montaneYungasforestsof northwest Argentina and southern Bolivia, a very different environment from those inhabited by Lutreolina elsewhere (i.e. lowland savannah grasslands).The populations from the Yungas are also morphologically distinct, both in size, shape, and in discrete characters of the skull and dentition. We found that these populations belong to a different species than that of the eastern lowlands. As no taxonomic name is available to apply to these populations, we name and describe a new species of lutrineopossum to encompass them.