Makalata didelphoides (Desmarest 1817)

[Echimys] didelphoides Desmarest 1817, Nouv. Dict. Hist. Nat., Nouv. ed., Vol. 10: 58.

Type Locality: Unknown, probably Brazil.

Vernacular Names: Red-nosed Armored Tree-rat.

Synonyms: Makalata armatus (I. Geoffroy 1838); Makalata castaneus (Allen and Chapman 1893); Makalata guianae (Thomas 1888); Makalata hispidus (Lichtenstein 1830); Makalata longirostris (Anthony 1921) .

Distribution: Andes of N Ecuador and Colombia, Venezuela, Guyanas, Amazon Basin of Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago; perhaps Martinique (record probably erroneous, see Hall, 1981:1180).

Conservation: IUCN – Data Deficient as Mesomys didelphoides, Lower Risk (lc) as Makalata armatus .

Discussion: Emmons (1993 a) concluded that the holotype for Echimys didelphoides was a young Makalata armata and therefore E. didelphoides Desmarest 1817 antedates Nelomys armatus I. Geoffroy (1838) . Karyotype has 2n=66 and FN=110 (Lima et al., 1998). Sequence data suggest more than one species present in didelphoides (da Silva and Patton, 1993; Patton et al., 2000).