''Brucepattersonius'' is a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of
rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...
s within the tribe
Akodontini from southeastern South America.
Also known as brucies, the genus is named after Bruce Patterson, MacArthur Curator at the Department of Zoology (Mammals), at the
Field Museum of Natural History,
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
.
History
In 1998,
Philip Hershkovitz described the genus and four species from the
Atlantic Forest of southeastern
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
and also included the previously described species ''B. iheringi'', which had been included in ''
Oxymycterus'' and some other genera before. Two years later, Mares and Braun described three additional species from
Misiones Province
Misiones (, ''Missions'') is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil to the north, east and south, and Corrientes ...
, northeastern Argentina, on the basis of a total of three specimens. In 2006, Vilela and others found that two of Hershkovitz's species were in fact identical. More material from Argentina was later reported, but not assigned to species.
[Vilela, J. F., J. A. de Oliveira, and C. R. Bonvicino (2006). Taxonomic status of ''Brucepattersonius albinasus'' (Rodentia: Sigmodontinae). ''Zootaxa, 1199'', 61-68.]
Description
The brucies belong to the
subfamily Sigmodontinae
The rodent subfamily Sigmodontinae includes New World rats and mice, with at least 376 species. Many authorities include the Neotominae and Tylomyinae as part of a larger definition of Sigmodontinae. When those genera are included, the specie ...
and the
tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...
Akodontini. They are ground-dwellers, and may have a preference for higher altitudes within the rainforest area. Each species is thought to be restricted to a limited area. It is uncertain if they are all distinct species, since many are known from very few specimens, which makes it difficult to know how variable brucies are.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q141986
Rodent genera