Leopardus munoai, Ximenez, 1961

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 : 602-604

LEOPARDUS MUNOAI ( XIMÉNEZ, 1961), COMB. NOV.

( FIG. 14)

Muñoa’s or Uruguayan pampas cat.

Felis pajero: Burmeister, 1879: 128 ; part; incorrect subsequent spelling of Felis pajeros Desmarest.

Felis pajeros: Arechavaleta, 1882: 43 ; not Felis pajeros Desmarest.

Felis passerum: Aplin, 1894: 298 ; not Felis passerum Sclater.

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

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

Felis colocola muñoai Ximénez, 1961: 3 ; type locality: ‘Arroyo Perdido, Departamento de Soriano’ ( Uruguay).

Felis colocola munoai: Ximénez, 1970: 1 ; corrected spelling of subspecific name ( ICZN, 1999: Art. 32.5.2).

Felis (Lynchailurus) colocola munoai: Ximénez, Langguth & Praderi, 1972: 17 ; name combination.

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

L [ynchailurus]. braccatus munoai: García-Perea, 1994: 32 ; name combination.

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

[ Leopardus braccatus ] munoai: Wozencraft, 2005: 538 ; name combination.

L [eopardus]. b [raccatus]. fasciatus: González & Martínez-Lanfranco, 2010: 188 ; name combination; not Felis fasciatus Larrañaga.

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 munoai: 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; name combination.

Type locality: ‘Arroyo Perdido, Departamento de Soriano’ ( Uruguay) ( Ximénez, 1961: 5) .

Type material: Holotype: MNHN-M884 , skin and skull of an adult female collected by Florencio Lezica in the type locality on 4 August 1959; skull damaged . Paratypes: MNHN-M875 , a skin of unknown gender collected in May , 1959 by Juan Escoto in Estancia Juan Escoto, Tarariras, Departamento de Cerro Largo, Uruguay ; MNHN-M879 , a skin and skull of a juvenile male, collected in July , 1959 by Orosmán Constantino in Chamizo, Departamento de San José, Uruguay ; MNHN-M971 , skin and skull of an adult male collected in February , 1960 by Juan Fernandez in Estancia Bella Vista, Zapicán, Departamento de Lavalleja, Uruguay .

Diagnosis: Leopardus munoai is distinguished by the forehead, crown and nape having a yellowish grey colour; two dark yellowish dark brown cheek lines; narrow gular stripes in dark yellowish brown colour; spinal crest dark yellowish grey; sides of body yellowish grey with distinct or indistinct dark yellowish grey oblique lines; dark brown to black longitudinal stripes in chest and abdomen; feet with dorsal surface light coloured and palmar/plantar surfaces blackish; tail with few discontinuous rings near the distal end and reduced black tip; sagittal crest poorly developed and restricted to interparietal region; P2 is present in most specimens.

Geographical distribution: Open areas of southern Brazil (the southern portion of the Rio Grande do Sul state), Uruguay and north-eastern Argentina (Province of Corrientes) ( Ximénez, 1961; García-Perea, 1994; Queirolo, 2009, 2016) ( Fig. 9; Supporting Information, Appendix S3, Fig. S9). Leopardus munoai is probably separated geographically from Le. braccatus and Le. pajeros by the Paraná River in the west and from Le. braccatus by forested regions in southern and south-western Brazil in the north ( Fig. 9).

Taxonomicnotes: Leopardusmunoai hasbeenregarded for a long time either as a subspecies of Le. colocola ( 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 Le. braccatus (García- Perea, 1994; Wozencraft, 2005; Chebez et al., 2008; Barstow & Leslie Jr., 2012). García-Perea (1994) treated it as a subspecies of Lynchailurus braccatus based on morphological similarities of the skull, on the existence of variation in the pelage pattern and body size, and on the distribution ranges, which are separated from each other by a forested region.

González & Martínez-Lanfranco (2010) commented that the subspecies present in Uruguay is called Le. b. fasciatus ( Larrañaga, 1923) , without justifying the use of this name in place of munoai , ignoring the discussion of Ximénez et al. (1970). The latter authors have argued that Felis fasciatus Larrañaga, 1923 is a junior synonym of Le. pajeros ( Desmarest, 1816) , since the description and the body measures coincide with those of ‘Le Pajeros’ of Azara (1801, 1802), which was the basis of the description of Desmarest’s Felis pajeros .

Remarks: Schwangart (1941) commented on two skins that represent an ‘intermediate stage for the blackening of the feet’ [his Lynchailurus (Lynchailurus) pajeros braccatus Phase B ], which is a characteristic present in Le. munoai . These two skins were deposited in the Munich Museum at the time Schwangart studied them (before 1941). One of them (‘Barbieux 1931, No. 81’) has an unknown locality, whereas the other (‘H. Krieg 1931/32’) was purchased in Asuncion, Paraguay during the Hans Krieg Expedition. Regarding the locality of this last skin, care must be taken, because there is no evidence that animals with this feature are present in Paraguay. We only found individuals with completely blackened feet (Le. braccatus ) in this country. Possibly the animal may have been collected on the other bank (right) of the Paraná River (NE Argentina), where the partially dark feet specimens (i.e. Le. munoai pattern) are found, and then it was transported to Asuncion. In addition, Burmeister (1879: 129) described a specimen collected in the province of Entre Rios, north-eastern Argentina, that shows the sole of the foot almost black.