The tuft-tailed spiny tree rat (''Lonchothrix emiliae'') is a spiny rat species from

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 ...

south of the

Amazon River The Amazon River (, ; es, Río Amazonas, pt, Rio Amazonas) in South America is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world, and the disputed longest river system in the world in comparison to the Nile. The headwaters of t ...

, where it has been found in

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natur ...

and

gallery forest A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above th ...

. It is the only species in the genus ''Lonchothrix''. Very little is known about this rodent. It is small with an average adult weight of about 138 grams. It is nocturnal and solitary in habits. The genus and species were described by

Oldfield Thomas Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist. Career Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for the first time. He was appoin ...

in 1920. The genus name '' Lonchothrix'' derives from the two

ancient greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

words (), meaning "spear", and , (), meaning "hair".

Phylogeny

''Lonchothrix'' is a member of the

Echimyini Echimyini is a tribe of echimyid rodents, proposed in 2016, and containing 13 extant genera: all of the tree rats ''Echimys'', ''Phyllomys'', '' Makalata'', ''Pattonomys'', '' Toromys'', ''Diplomys'', ''Santamartamys'', and ''Isothrix'', the long ...

clade of

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the Animal locomotion, locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally, but others are exclusively arboreal. Th ...

Echimyidae rodents. The closest relative of ''Lonchothrix'' is ''Mesomys'', reflecting the fact that these taxa have once been classified in the same subfamily (

Eumysopinae Echimyidae is the family of neotropical spiny rats and their fossil relatives. This is the most species-rich family of Hystricognathi, hystricognath rodents. It is probably also the most ecologically diverse, with members ranging from fully ar ...

). These two genera share phylogenetic affinities with several taxa and clades: (i) ''Echimys'', ''Phyllomys'', ''Makalata'', ''Pattonomys'', and ''Toromys'' ; (ii) the bamboo rats ''Dactylomys'', ''Olallamys'', ''Kannabateomys'' together with ''Diplomys'' and ''Santamartamys'' ; and (iii) ''Isothrix''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q390155 Echimyidae Mammals described in 1920 Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas