''Cavia anolaimae'' is a
guinea pig
The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig (''Cavia porcellus''), also known as the cavy or domestic cavy (), is a species of rodent belonging to the genus '' Cavia'' in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the word ''cavy'' to describe the ...
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 sout ...
. It is found in
Colombia near
Bogotá. It is believed to be a
feral
A feral () animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in some ...
offshoot of the
domestic guinea pig
The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig (''Cavia porcellus''), also known as the cavy or domestic cavy (), is a species of rodent belonging to the genus '' Cavia'' in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the word ''cavy'' to describe the an ...
, ''Cavia porcellus'', and is often treated as a synonym of ''C. porcellus'', but Zúñiga et al. (2002), based on morphologic characters, recognized them as different species. According to the molecular analysis of Dunnum and Salazar (2010) ''C. anolaimae'' is a
subspecies of ''
Cavia aperea'', ''C. aperea anolaimae'', and a possible synonymous of ''
C. a. guianae'' .
References
* Woods C. A. and C. W. Kilpatrick. 2005. Hystricognathi pp. 1538-1600 ''in'' D. E. Wilson and M. A. Reeder, eds. ''Mammal Species of the World'', 3rd edition, p. 1553.
*
* Zúñiga, H.; Pinto-Nolla, M.; Hernández-Camacho, J.I. & Torres-Martínez, O.M. 2002. "Revisión taxonómica de las especies del género Cavia (Rodentia: Caviidae) en Colombia"; ''Acta Zoológica Mexicana'' 87: 111–123.
* Donnum, Jonathan L. & Salazar-Bravo, Jorge. 2010. "Molecular systematics, taxonomy and biogeography of the genus Cavia (Rodentia: Caviidae)"; ''Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research'' 48(4): 376–388.
Guinea pigs
Endemic fauna of Colombia
Rodents of South America
Mammals of Colombia
Mammals described in 1916
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