''Brucepattersonius'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

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 na ...

s within the tribe

Akodontini Akodontini is the second most speciose rodent tribe of the subfamily Sigmodontinae. It includes at least 106 living species in 19 genera and is distributed mainly in the southern half of South America, with only two genera extending into Guyana (' ...

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 The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...

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 The Atlantic Forest ( pt, Mata Atlântica) is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and th ...

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 ''Oxymycterus'' is a genus of rat-like rodents commonly known as hocicudos. They are endemic to South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively sma ...

'' 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 In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...

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 language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...

. 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