524.

Candango Burrowing Mouse

Juscelinomys candango

French: Akodon de Brasilia / German: Candango-Maulwurfsmaus / Spanish: Raton cavador de Candango

Other common names: Candango Akodont

Taxonomy. Juscelinomys candago Moojen, 1965, “terrenos da Fundacao Zoologico Zoobotanica de Brasilia (alt. 1030 m), Distrito Federal,” Brazil. Clarified by U. F. J. Pardinas and colleagues in 2009 to “Jardim Zoologico de Brasilia Sgt. Silvio Delmar Hollembach (15°51°S, 47°56’0), Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brasil.”

Juscelinomys candango is the type species of the genus. Monotypic.

Distribution. Known only from the type locality in C Brazil.

Descriptive notes. Head-body 128-155 mm, tail 85-116 mm, ear 12-15 mm, hindfoot 21-24 mm. No specific data are available for body weight. The Candango Burrowing Mouse is medium-sized, Oxymycteruslike sigmodontine, with short tail ¢.70% of headbody length. Upperparts are strongly tinged rusty orange, with gray-based hairs tipped with orange or black, so overall impression of pelage is reddish, streaked with black; mystacial area, cheeks, and eye-rings are pure orange; nose is completely hairy except between nostrils; underparts are orange-buff, with sharp transition from dorsal color on sides; ventral hairs are pale-based, but some specimens have sooty patches on underparts that might be due to soiling. Ears are small and fully haired on back and internallateral surfaces; and tail is short and broad at base, fully covered with hair, black basally with orange tips, generally blackish above, and more orange below. Feet are dusky washed ocherous; ungual tufts are sparse, and few hairs do not reach tips of claws on hindfeet. Vibrissae are fine and inconspicuous; mystacials reach to just behind eye when pressed back. The most striking external differences between the Candango Burrowing Mouse and the Huanchaca Burrowing Mouse (/. huanchacae) are bright ferrugineus dorsal color and apparently thicker tail of the Candango Burrowing Mouse compared with olivaceous color and narrowertail of the Huanchaca Burrowing Mouse. Tail of the Candango Burrowing Mouse is fragile, and several specimens have short or missing tails.

Habitat. Campo cerrado habitat in Cerrado biome, an area of grasslands with sparse trees.

Food and Feeding. Stomachs of Candango Burrowing Mice contained unidentified fibrous plant material and 10-20 large ants.

Breeding. No information.

Activity patterns. No information.

Movements, Home range and Social organization. The Candango Burrowing Mouse uses burrows; bare access paths are packed with dirt excavated from these burrows. Two tunnels, oval in cross-section and 9 cm at the widest diameter, leave the surface and meet at a nest chamber ¢.80 cm belowground. Nests are poorly lined with pieces of grass and fine roots.

Status and Conservation. Classified as Extinct on The IUCN Red List. The Candango Burrowing Mouse is known from only nine specimens collected in 1960 during excavations to construct the city of Brasilia. Despite intensive efforts to capture additional individuals, no others have ever been found, although its presence in other similar habitats cannot be entirely ruled out; for this reason,it is retained here as possibly extant. Its rarity is likely to be genuine and not just a result of low trapability. Agroindustry and raising cattle on grasslands planted with exotic species have already destroyed much of the natural savannas of the Cerrado.

Bibliography. Emmons (1999, 2015), Emmons & Patton (2012), da Fonseca (1994), Hershkovitz (1998), Leite & Patterson (2008c), Marinho-Filho et al. (2002), Moojen (1965), Pardifas, D'Elia & Teta (2009).