Delomys Thomas, 1917

Guy G. Musser & Michael D. Carleton, 1993, Order Rodentia - Family Muridae, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 501-755 : 700

Delomys Thomas, 1917 . Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 8, 20: 196.

TYPE SPECIES: Hesperomys dorsalis Hensel, 1872 .

COMMENTS: Thomasomyine. Delomys has variously stood as a genus ( Avila-Pires, 1960b; Gyldenstolpe, 1932; Tate, 1932/) or placed within Thomasomys , with or without formal subgeneric division ( Ellerman, 1941; Moojen, 1952; Osgood, 1933d). As remarked by Osgood (1933d), Thomas in part created Delomys to taxonomically underscore the geographic disjunction between thomasomyines in SE Brazil and the diverse radiation of typical Thomasomys in the N Andes (e.g., see Reig, 1986). There are features that unite the forms of Delomys , but decision on its classificatory rank—and that of other SE Brazilian endemics like Wilfredomys , Rhagomys , and Phaenomys — must await broader-based phylogenetic inquiry involving Andean thomasomyines.

Number of recognized species listed as four ( Moojen, 1952), three ( Reig, 1986), two ( Ellerman, 1941; Gyldenstolpe, 1932), or one ( Corbet and Hill, 1991; Cabrera, 1961), a situation which advises that future list-making would profit from critical specimen examination. Here we recognize two, D. dorsalis and D. sublineatus , following the karyotypic study of Zanchin et al. (1992b). Avila-Pires (1960b) associated Calomys plebejus Winge, 1887 , as another form of Delomys ; its status with regard to dorsalis and sublineatus warrents clarification.