Short-tailed opossums of the nominotypical subgenus Monodelphis occur throughout most of the cis-Andean lowlands of tropical South America. Among its member species, a monophyletic group that includes M. glirina (Amazonian red-sided opossum), M. sanctaerosae (Santa Rosa short-tailed opossum), and an unnamed taxon, herein referred to as the Monodelphis glirina group, is the focus of this paper. I provide an emended diagnosis for species of the group, information about geographic variation in M. glirina (including M. maraxina [Marajó short-tailed opossum]), and a formal description for the unnamed taxon mentioned above. The new species, known from two savanna localities in northeastern Roraima, is geographically disjunct from its closer relatives, M. glirina and M. sanctaerosae, only known to occur south of the Amazon. The new species differs from other congeneric taxa by a set of morphological characters and by DNA sequences.
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11 January 2019
A revision of the Monodelphis glirina group (Didelphidae: Marmosini), with a description of a new species from Roraima, Brazil
Silvia E. Pavan
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Journal of Mammalogy
Vol. 100 • No. 1
March 2019
Vol. 100 • No. 1
March 2019
Amazonia
marsupial
savanna
short-tailed opossums
taxonomy