The white-faced spiny tree-rat (''Echimys chrysurus'') is a spiny rat

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

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 ...

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

and

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...

. 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 (), ''gold'', and (), ''animal tail''. The main diagnostic character state of this ''

Echimys ''Echimys'' is a genus of the spiny rats family, the Echimyidae. Members of this genus are collectively called spiny tree-rats. The genus name ''Echimys'', and also its synonym ''Echinomys'', derive from the two Ancient Greek words (), meani ...

'' species is the presence of a dorsal white median stripe on the head. As compared to ''

Echimys vieirai ''Echimys vieirai'' is a spiny rat species from South America, described in 2005. It is found in Brazil. The species name ''vieirai'' is a patronym for the Brazilian mammalogist Carlos Octaviano da Cunha Vieira, curator of the Mammal Collection ...

'' and '' Echimys saturnus'', ''E. chrysurus'' also possesses a brighter dorsum.

References

Echimys Mammals described in 1780 Taxa named by Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann {{Echimyidae-stub