Edentates are found in every country of the Western Hemisphere except Canada and the smaller Caribbean islands. This panoramic distribution has brought them into contact with a profusion of languages, and some widespread species have been known by many dozens or hundreds of indigenous names. The ascent of European languages to continental dominance has given rise to many more — some of them adaptations of prior native terms, and others entirely new.

Two of these latecomer tongues, Spanish and Portuguese, overlay virtually the entire range of the edentate order, and together they encompass more local and regional variants than any other extant language. Spanish common names in particular are myriad, diverse and frequently confusing; the suite of terms in one country may be entirely distinct from another — and the same name may be used for different species in several different areas. This is not to say that pandemonium reigns: experienced researchers know the terrain, and field biologists are familiar with the local names where they work. But for those searching through reports or making comparisons from afar — or those who are simply new to the field — aligning the common and Latin names may take a great deal of paging through far-flung references.

We have done some paging ourselves, and here we share the results of our efforts: a compilation of the established common names in the major languages of Neotropical science, together with as broad a selection of current local names as we could assemble. We also present a sampling of the hundreds of indigenous names which still survive throughout Central and South America, in recognition of the many peoples and cultures who first gave names to the edentates.

This is an expansive list, but it is by no means exhaustive in any of these languages; a truly comprehensive document would want a lifetime of ethnographic surveys throughout the hemisphere. Instead we have tried to compile, in a workable matrix, the names which have already been included in a variety of field guides, monographs, articles and other publications. Not all versions of each name have been listed here; many indigenous languages are only spoken, not written, and countless variants may stem from differences in transcription and pronunciation. Rather than list a dense tangle of infinite detail, we have tried to create a useful index of active common names, in hopes of providing an easy but thorough reference guide.

For the Latin names we follow the working taxonomy of the Edentate Specialist Group, as presented in Fonseca and Aguiar (2004), which itself follows the taxonomy of Mammal Species of the World, Second and Third Editions (Wilson and Reeder, 1993, 2005). We have listed the species names in alphabetical order within each of the three major divisions of the Xenarthra; this is a linguistic rather than a phylogenetic display, and no particular taxonomic arrangement is implied.

For the English common names, we rely primarily on Wilson and Cole's Common Names of Mammals of the World 2000, which tracks the taxonomy presented in Wilson and Reeder (1993). We use these names as our default standard, and they are presented first in the tables below. These names are generally used by the other major sources, but in cases where they provide different terms we have cited them individually. Superina (2000) adds several sensible variants which we felt should be included, and Duff and Lawson's recent book, Mammals of the World: A Checklist 2004 is a valuable secondary source.

There appears to be no Spanish counterpart to Wilson and Cole (2000), so for the primary names in Spanish we have relied on Neotropical Rainforest Mammals by Emmons and Feer (1997), and the three volumes of Mammals of the Neotropics by Eisenberg and Redford (1989, 1992, 1999). Emmons and Feer in particular give a wealth of names in more than a dozen languages, although their focus excludes most of the armadillos. We have also referred to Gene Montgomery's 1985 volume on The Evolution and Ecology of Armadillos, Sloths, and Vermilinguas.

We have drawn the Portuguese names from several sources, primarily Fonseca et al. (1996) and Emmons and Feer (1997), supplementing with other publications whenever possible. For German and French names, we have consulted Grzimeks Enzyklopädie Säugetiere 1988, while the Dutch names are taken principally from Father A. M. Husson's Mammals of Suriname 1978, supplemented by Emmons and Feer. Local and indigenous names appear in a wide spectrum of sources, including field guides, journal articles, monographs, Red List compilations and miscellaneous volumes.

But this is no final document: we hope this first effort will encourage our readers, especially those who live and work in the field, to contribute the common names they have encountered for edentates in any language. Comments in Spanish may be sent to Mariella Superina at <mariella@superina.ch>, and in English and Portuguese to John Aguiar at <j.aguiar@conservation.org>. We plan to establish an online, searchable data-base of edentate common names, to be made available on the website for the Edentate Specialist Group (< http://www.edentata.org>), and we look forward to augmenting this list manyfold with additions from yourselves.

TABLE 1.

Sloths.

TABLE 1.

Continued.

TABLE 2.

Anteaters.

TABLE 2.

Continued.

TABLE 3.

Armadillos.

TABLE 3.

Coninued.

TABLE 3.

Coninued.

TABLE 3.

Coninued.