Chinchilla brevicaudata

The Chinchilla with short tail , Chinchilla brevicaudata Waterhouse, 1848, is a rodent night of intermediate size perhaps living still in the Cordillière of the Andes. It is a species in critical danger of extinction of the kind Chinchilla, family of the chinchillidés .

Taxonomy

The species quasi disappeared before its scientific name does not achieve the unanimity. The synomymes are numerous: Eriomys chinchilla Lichtenstein, 1830; Chinchilla boliviana ; Eriomys brevicaudata ; Chinchilla chinchilla , Chinchilla chinchilla chinchilla ; Chinchilla chinchilla boliviana ; Chinchilla intermedia (1939); Chinchilla brevicaudata (major) (1879); Chinchilla major ; Lagostomus laniger (1831) or Chinchilla will lanigera brevicaudata .

The generally allowed Latin name is Chinchilla brevicaudata Waterhouse, 1848, but in 2003 Valladares and Spotorno lodged a request with the zoological International commission of nomenclature to replace this name by Eriomys chinchilla Lichtenstein, 1830 which corresponds better to the recent studies in Phylogénétique.

Certain authors distinguish from possible subspecies, not confirmed:

the Chinchilla brevicaudata brevicaudata (the Andes of the south of Peru and north of Chile) and the Chinchilla brevicaudata boliviana (the Andes of the south of Bolivia and the North-East of Argentina) (Arm, 1911), declared " endangered" in 1976 on US Federal List.
royal Chinchilla, disappeared giant subspecies, whose only empaillé specimen would be visible with the Senckenberg Museum of Natural history to Frankfurt on the Hand.

Description

Habitat: Peru, Bolivia, Argentinian, Chile, in the very high the Andes.

Cut: body from 30 to 38 cm and tail of 10 cm.

Characteristics: Caviomorphe, i.e. aspect close to the guinea-pig but with more one thick and bulky tail made up of 20 vertebrae. Fur gray, dense, being able to draw on the brown one, smaller ears, more massive body, tail shorter than that of the species Chinchilla will lanigera .

Morphology and history:

Survival of the species

The natural habitat of the Chinchilla brevicaudata is the Cordillière of the Andes. Officially, the last wild animal was seen in 1953, one thinks that the species is perhaps already extinct in nature.

This species of chinchilla could however survive in the areas inaccessible to the limit of the borders Argentine, Chilienne and Bolivian. In 1970, one would have seen the Chinchilla brevicaudata in the north of Chile in the National park Lauca.

In 2000 in Argentina Held it Provincial Altoandina of Chinchilla was created, Lagunas de Vilama. The chinchilla brevicaudata could live still there.

In 2000 the species is declared " critically endangered" by IUCN.

According to the organization " Save the wild chinchillas", eleven chinchillas with short tail discovered and were captured in 2001 to be put in provisional observation. One died, three males would be intended to remain definitively captive for the genetic interest of the domestic breeding.

Until now the conservatory breeding was a failure (Jiménez, 2006).

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