''Trinomys gratiosus'' is a species in the mainly

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 ...

n family

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

, the spiny rats; it occurs in southeast

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 ...

from the south bank of the River Doce, Espirito Sante, southward to Teresopolis, Rio de Janeiro.

Taxonomy

Recently published studies suggest that the

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

of the genus ''Trinomys'' as currently described is not yet stable and that the genus might well be split. Some evidence suggests that the lineage of the

South American 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 ...

spiny rats is older than might have been expected and in spite of morphological resemblance, the populations have diverged widely.

Status

In 2008 the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

rated ''Trinomys gratiosus'' as

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

(''LC''); its population is apparently large, it does not seem to be declining fast enough for listing in a threatened category, and the habitat is not under obvious threat.

Common name

The species does not occur and is not widely known in

Anglophone Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the ''Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest language ...

regions, so the idea of popular English names raises problems. For example, at least two coined "common names" have been published recently without special authority. Neither is in use in the local

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

where the species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

, and neither is a valid derivation of the

species name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

. "Gracile Atlantic spiny-rat" is inappropriate because the word gracile has nothing to do with the meaning or etymology of the Latin "gratiosus". A rival name, "graceful spiny-rat", is no better justified; "''gratiosus''" specifically means either "enjoying favour, favoured, beloved", or "showing favour, complaisant" "a favourite", or at best "gracious", not "graceful".Morell, Thomas; "An Abridgement of Ainsworth's Latin Dictionary" 13th ed, John Carey; Pub Longman, London, 1834. No authority to date has proposed a better option than using the species name, ''Trinomys gratiosus'' in English.

References

* Trinomys Mammals described in 1948 {{Echimyidae-stub