The long-tailed armored tree-rat (''Makalata macrura''), is a spiny rat species from

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. It is found in

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 ...

, with a population in

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...

which is referable either to this species or to ''

Makalata didelphoides The Brazilian spiny tree rat (''Makalata didelphoides'') is a species of rodent in the family Echimyidae. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, and Trinidad and Tobago where it lives in lowland tropical rain ...

''. Initially considered a large form of the latter species, it actually represents a distinct species as supported by morphological and molecular characters. The etymology of the species name 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 "long", and (), meaning "animal tail".

References

Makalata Mammals of Brazil Mammals described in 1842 {{Echimyidae-stub