Echimys

Amazon bamboo rats (Dactylomys dactylinus) and various species of arboreal spiney rats (Echimys spp.) are found in the floodplain forests in upper Amazonia.

Iquitos varzea 2008

Various species of arboreal spiney rats (Echimys) are found in the floodplain forests in Upper Amazonia.

Purus varzea 2008

Mammals found only here or in few other Amazonian regions include primates such as tamarins (Saguinus midas), squirrel monkeys (Saimiri ustus), endangered titi monkeys (Callicebus moloch), marmosets (Callithrix argentatado), a number of rodents such as Coendou koopmani, Myoprocta acouchy, and arboreal rats (Echimys chrysurus and E. grandis), savanna foxes (Cerdocyon thous), and many bats.

Gurupa varzea 2008

It’s convergent with climbing murids, like the cloudrunners Crateromys and cloud rats Phloeomys of the Philippines and the giant tree rats Mallomys of New Guinea (Emmons 1999b), and its striking coloration is much like that of the White-faced tree rat Echimys chrysurus (a member of the echimyid, or spiny rat, family: echimyids are hysticognaths, as are abrocomids, but they apparently belong to the octodontid-hutia clade, not to the chinchilla-vizcacha clade (Sánchez-Villagra et al. 2003)).

Archive 2006-03-01 Darren Naish 2006