Leopardus braccatus

Nascimento, Fabio Oliveira Do, Cheng, Jilong & Feijó, Anderson, 2021, Taxonomic revision of the pampas cat Leopardus colocola complex (Carnivora: Felidae): an integrative approach, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 191, pp. 575-611 : 596-598

LEOPARDUS BRACCATUS ( COPE, 1889)

( FIG. 12)

Pantanal cat or Brazilian pampas cat.

Felis braccata Cope, 1889: 146 ; type locality: ‘province of Rio Grande do Sul, or Matto Grosso’, restricted to ‘Chapada dos Guimarães’ (State of Mato Grosso, Brazil) by J. A. Allen (1919).

[ Felis (Catopuma) ] braccata: Trouessart, 1897: 364 ; name combination.

Lynchailurus pajeros braccatus: Allen, 1919 ; name combination.

[ Felis (] Mungofelis [) braccata ]: Antonius, 1933: 13; name combination.

L [ynchailurus]. colocolus braccatus: Cabrera, 1940: 12 ; name combination; unjustified emendation of colocola of Molina.

Lynchailurus (Lynch [ailurus].) pajeros braccatus: Schwangart, 1941: 29 ; part; name combination.

[ Lynchailurus (Lynch [ailurus].) pajeros braccatus ] Phase C: Schwangart, 1941: 32; name combination.

Felis [( Lynchailurus )] colocolo braccata: Cabrera, 1958: 275 ; name combination.

F [elis]. colocola braccata: Ximénez, 1961: 6 ; name combination.

Oncifelis (Lynchailurus) pajeros: Hemmer, 1978: 77 ; part; name combination.

Lynchailurus braccatus: García-Perea, 1994: 25 ; part.

L [ynchailurus]. b [raccatus]. braccatus: García-Perea, 1994: 25 ; name combination.

Leopardus braccatus: Wozencraft, 2005: 537 ; part; name combination.

Leopardus colocola: Kitchener, Breitenmoser-Würsten, Eizirik, Gentry, Werdelin, Wilting, Yamaguchi,

Abramov, Christiansen, Driscoll, Duckworth, Johnson, Luo, Meijaard, O’Donoghue, Sanderson, Seymour, Bruford, Groves, Hoffmann, Nowell, Timmons & Tobe, 2017: 51; part; name combination.

Leopardus colocola braccatus: Kitchener, Breitenmoser-Würsten, Eizirik, Gentry, Werdelin, Wilting, Yamaguchi, Abramov, Christiansen, Driscoll, Duckworth, Johnson, Luo, Meijaard, O’Donoghue, Sanderson, Seymour, Bruford, Groves, Hoffmann, Nowell, Timmons & Tobe, 2017: 53 ; part; name combination.

Type material: AMNH354 , skull and skin of an adult male collected by Herbert H. Smith in November 1884 .

Type locality: ‘province of Rio Grande do Sul, or Matto Grosso’ ( Brazil) ( Cope 1889: 146). Later restricted as ‘Chapada dos Guimarães’ by J. A. Allen (1919).

Diagnosis: Leopardus braccatus is distinguished by a brown background colour of the forehead, crown and nape; mandible and medial infranasal area white or pale yellowish brown; spinal crest dark brown to black. The sides of the body have a brown colour with indistinct oblique slightly darker brown lines. Feet are entirely blackish. The tail is uniform brownish without rings and with a black tip. P2 is present in most specimens.

Geographical distribution: The species occurs in open habitats of central Brazil (from Pantanal to southwestern Piauí in north-eastern Brazil), Paraguay, Bolivian lowlands (records from the Department of Beni) and northern Argentina (record from the Province of Formosa) ( García-Perea, 1994; Silveira, 1995; Bagno et al., 2004; Chebez et al., 2008; Luque et al., 2012; Nascimento et al., 2016) ( Fig. 9; Supporting Information, Appendix S3, Fig. S7).

Taxonomic notes: Leopardus braccatus has been regarded either as a subspecies of Le. colocola ( Cabrera, 1940, 1958; Ximénez, 1961; Ximénez, 1970; Pecon-Slattery et al., 1994, 2000, 2004; Masuda et al., 1996; Johnson & O’Brien, 1997; Eizirik et al., 1998; Pecon-Slattery & O’Brien, 1998; Johnson et al., 1999; Napolitano et al., 2008; Cossíos et al., 2009; Sunquist & Sunquist, 2009; Kitchener et al., 2017) or of L. pajeros ( Allen, 1919; Pocock, 1941; Schwangart, 1941). García- Perea (1994) recognized it as a polytypic species with two subspecies, Ly. b. braccatus from central Brazil and Paraguay and Ly. b. munoai from southern Brazil and Uruguay. Our study shows that these two subspecies are warranted recognition at the species level. Schwangart (1941) recognized three phases for his Lynchailurus (Lynchailurus) pajeros braccata , which distinguished themselves from each other mainly by the pattern of darkening of the feet: Phase A, ‘without blackening of the feet’, Phase B, ‘intermediate stage for the blackening of the feet’ and Phase C, ‘perfect blackening of the feet’. However, only Schwangart’s Phase C actually represents Le. braccatus , whereas the two former correspond, respectively, to Le. pajeros and Le. munoai .

Remarks: Despite young individuals having the overall brown body colour and entirely black feet similar to adults, they show conspicuous dark markings arranged in the scapuloinguinal direction along the flanks, which fades in adults. This pattern was observed by us in the specimen MNRJ 4868 from Maracaju, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil (Supporting Information, Appendix S4) and by Silveira (1995), who observed conspicuous irregular black bands over the body of a 75 days old individual, that disappeared completely when it reached 8 months old. Beviglieri et al. (2018) provided photos of a live late juvenile, in which it is possible to observe some visible oblique bands on the side of the animal. Melanistic specimens of Le. braccatus have been reported in the wild ( Silveira et al., 2005; Parque Nacional das Emas, Goiás, Brazil), in captivity ( Monticelli & Marques, 2015) and we also observed one in a museum collection ( MZUSP 7670, from Três Lagoas, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil).