Dear Colleagues:
Thanks to all who took time to help with the issue of large rodent post-cranials for South America. It seems that skeletal morphology of rodents is of interest primarily to zooarchaeologists and possibly paleontologists now that genetic approaches have come to dominate in reconstructing phylogenies. In U.S., there are many more skulls, fluid specimens, and skins, than skeletons. The largest collections of Ctenomys skeletons are at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, and the Smithsonian. I hope to be able to see some of these specimens and will attempt to get some good photographs. At this point, the tibia is my mystery bone.
Annelise Binois is another source for skeletal material on Octadon and Chinchilla.
(Annelise Binois [log in to unmask])
Morgan, C. C. 2009. Geometric morphometrics of the scapula of south American caviomorph rodents (Rodentia: Hystricognathi): from, function and phylogeny. Mammalian Biology 74:497-506.
Several people sent me this useful reference:
Morgan, C. C. & Verzi, D. H. 2006. Morphological diversity of the humerus of the South American subterranean rodent ctenomys (Rodentia, Ctenomyidae). Journal of Mammalogy 87(6):1252-1260.
From Cecilia Rodriguez Loredo De March ([log in to unmask])
CARRIZO, Luz V. and DIAZ, Mónica. Descripción del postcráneo de Rhipidomys austrinus y Graomys griseoflavus (Rodentia, Cricetidae, Sigmodontinae). Iheringia, Sér. Zool. [online]. 2011, vol.101, n.3 [cited 2015-06-05], pp. 207-219 . Available from: <http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0073-47212011000200008&lng=en&nrm=iso>. ISSN 0073-4721. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0073-47212011000200008.
I also received a copy of a thesis about very interesting geometric morphometric approach, also focused on the forelimb:
Ruiz, Maria (2011) Análisis morfológico del aparato excavador en roedores subterráneos del género Ctenomys Blainville,1826 (Rodentia:Ctenomyidae). Tesis de grado Licenciatura enCiencias Biológicas Facultad de Ciencias Universidad de La República
And a very clear photograph of Ctenomys skull,mandible, humerus, and femur.
And a notice of another student involved in small mammals from archaeological sites at the Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Ana Paula Alcaraz.
Let me know if there are files you would like to receive off-list.
Kate
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