Vesper mouse
Temporal range: Pleistocene to Recent
Small vesper mouse (Calomys laucha)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Family: Cricetidae
Subfamily: Sigmodontinae
Tribe: Phyllotini
Genus: Calomys
Waterhouse, 1837
Type species
Mus bimaculatus[1]
Species

Calomys boliviae
Calomys callidus
Calomys callosus
Calomys cerqueirai
Calomys expulsus
Calomys fecundus
Calomys hummelincki
Calomys laucha
Calomys lepidus
Calomys musculinus
Calomys sorellus
Calomys tener
Calomys tocantinsi
Calomys venustus

Synonyms

Hesperomys Waterhouse, 1839

Vesper mice are rodents belonging to the genus Calomys. They are widely distributed in South America. Some species are notable as the vectors of Argentinian hemorrhagic fever and Bolivian hemorrhagic fever.

The genus was originally named Hesperomys, but was changed to Calomys in 1962.

History

Hesperomys was introduced by George Robert Waterhouse in 1839 for the American rodents with cusps arranged in two series. The name combines the Greek ἑσπερος "west" and μυς "mouse". He considered it possible that species of Hesperomys would be found in the Old World, but did not doubt that the Americas were their chief abode.[2] He included as species Mus bimaculatus (=Calomys laucha), Mus griseo-flavus (=Graomys griseoflavus), Mus Darwinii (=Phyllotis darwini), Mus zanthopygus (=Phyllotis xanthopygus), Mus galapagoensis (=Aegialomys galapagoensis), Symidon hispidum (=Sigmodon hispidus), Mus leucopus (=Peromyscus leucopus), and the woodrats (Neotoma).[3]

In following years, authors like Johann Andreas Wagner and Spencer Fullerton Baird expanded the genus to include additional American species, such as those placed now in Scapteromys, Oxymycterus, Abrothrix, and Peromyscus. In 1874, Elliott Coues designated Mus bimaculatus Waterhouse as the type species of Hesperomys.[4] In 1888, Herluf Winge used Hesperomys in a sense similar to modern Calomys (but confusingly placed species related to what is now known as Oryzomys in Calomys), but in the same year Oldfield Thomas argued that Hesperomys could not be separated from the hamsters (Cricetus). In 1896, however, he united it with Eligmodontia instead, where it remained until he reinstated it for modern Calomys in 1916. He did not use Calomys (introduced by Waterhouse in 1837 for Mus bimaculatus), because he thought it to be preoccupied by an earlier name Callomys d'Orbigny and Geoffroy, 1830.[5] In 1962, Philip Hershkovitz noted that the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature mandates that a name cannot be considered preoccupied even when it differs by only one letter from another, so Callomys cannot invalidate Calomys. As Calomys Waterhouse, 1837, and Hesperomys Waterhouse, 1839, both had Mus bimaculatus as their type species, the two are objective synonyms and the older name, Calomys, prevails; since then, Hesperomys has no longer been in use as a valid name.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Wilson, D. E.; Reeder, D. M., eds. (2005). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
  2. ↑ Hershkovitz 1962, p. 129; Waterhouse 1839, p. 75
  3. ↑ Waterhouse 1839, pp. 75–76; current nomenclature: Musser & Carleton 2005; Weksler, Percequillo & Voss 2006
  4. 1 2 Hershkovitz 1962, p. 129
  5. ↑ Hershkovitz 1962, p. 130

Further reading

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