February 27, 2018, FAPESP
Since the pioneering description
made in 1758 by Swedish naturalist and father of taxonomy Carl Nilsson Linnaeus
(1707-1778), there was officially one single silky anteater species. This
short-snouted, pigmy-sized anteater would then be known for its scientific
name, Cyclopes didactyla, after its
inclusion in the 10th edition of Systema
Naturae, Linnaeus' magnum opus. It is found in tropical forests in South
and Central America, as well as in the few remaining fragments of Atlantic
rainforest in Northeast Brazil.
Six populations of C. didactylus scattered through this
territory were discovered in the 19th and early 20th centuries. However,
because all the collected specimens appeared to be identical, it was thought
that the subtle morphological differences could only justify the creation of
subspecies of C. didactylus,
therefore, the only species in the family Cyclopedidae.
But now, a Brazilian group of
taxonomists, zoologists and geneticists proposes that silky anteaters comprise
at least seven distinct species, after concluding a study of the biology and
ecology of the new species, during which they sequenced mitochondrial and
nuclear DNA from 287 specimens. They have published their results in
the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
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