The
brown-tailed mongoose,
Malagasy brown-tailed mongoose, or
salano (
SalanoiaSalanoia is a genus of euplerid carnivoran with two currently described species found in Madagascar. They are mongoose-like, which is reflected in the older versions of their English names, for example brown-tailed mongoose which is now called brown-tailed vontsira. The name Salanoia is derived...
concolor) is a species of
mammalMammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
in the
EupleridaeThe family Eupleridae is a group of carnivorans endemic to Madagascar and comprising 10 known species in seven genera. Probably the best known species is the Fossa , in the subfamily Euplerinae...
family. It is endemic to Madagascar. Its natural
habitat* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
is subtropical or tropical dry
forestA forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
s. It is threatened by habitat loss.
Taxonomy
The brown-tailed mongoose was first described in 1837 by French zoologist
Isidore Geoffroy Saint-HilaireIsidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was a French zoologist and an authority on deviation from normal structure. He coined the term ethology.He was born in Paris, the son of Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire...
under the names
Galidia unicolor and
Galidia olivacea. He placed both in the
genusIn biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Galidia, together with the
ring-tailed mongooseThe Ring-tailed mongoose is a euplerid that lives on the island of Madagascar. There is actually much disagreement about the placement of Madagascar's carnivores including the Ring-tailed mongoose, within the phylogenetic tree. Recent molecular work by Anne Yoder et al...
(
Galidia elegans), which is now recognized as the only species of that genus. However, the name
unicolor had been a misprint for
concolor, and the name was corrected in an erratum and in a later note by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. In 1865,
John Edward GrayJohn Edward Gray, FRS was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray ....
placed
concolor and
olivacea in their own
subgenusIn biology, a subgenus is a taxonomic rank directly below genus.In zoology, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the generic name and the specific epithet: e.g. the Tiger Cowry of the Indo-Pacific, Cypraea tigris Linnaeus, which...
of
Galidia, which he called
SalanoiaSalanoia is a genus of euplerid carnivoran with two currently described species found in Madagascar. They are mongoose-like, which is reflected in the older versions of their English names, for example brown-tailed mongoose which is now called brown-tailed vontsira. The name Salanoia is derived...
. In 1882, St. George Jackson Mivart also separated
olivacea and
concolor from
Galidia, and placed them in a separate genus
Hemigalidia, without mentioning
Salanoia. In his 1904
Index generum mammalium, Palmer noted that
Salanoia, the first name to be published, was the proper name for the genus. Although
Glover Morrill AllenGlover Morrill Allen was an American zoologist.He was born at Walpole, New Hampshire, the son of Reverend Nathaniel Glover Allen and Harriet Ann Allen, and studied at Harvard University,...
, in 1939, still listed two species, which he called
Salanoia olivacea and
S. unicolor, by 1972 R. Albignac recognized a single species only, which he called
Salanoia concolor. A second species of
Salanoia,
Salanoia durrelliSalanoia durrelli, also known as Durrell's vontsira, is a Madagascan mammal in the family Eupleridae of the order Carnivora. It is most closely related to the brown-tailed mongoose , with which it forms the genus Salanoia. The two are genetically similar, but morphologically distinct, leading...
, was described in 2010.
Literature cited
- Albignac, R. 1972. The Carnivora of Madagascar. Pp. 667–682 in Battistini, R. & Richard-Vindard, G. (eds.). Biogeography and Ecology in Madagascar. The Hague: W. Junk B.B., Publishers.
- Allen, G.M. 1939. A checklist of African mammals. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 83:1–763.
- Durbin, J., Funk, S.M., Hawkins, F., Hills, D.M., Jenkins, P.D., Moncrieff, C.B. and Ralainasolo, F.B. 2010. Investigations into the status of a new taxon of Salanoia (Mammalia: Carnivora: Eupleridae) from the marshes of Lac Alaotra, Madagascar (subscription required). Systematics and Biodiversity, published online in advance of print: 15 pp.
- Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, I. 1837. Notice sur deux nouveaux genres de Mammifères carnassiers, les Ichneumies, du continent africain, et les Galidies, de Madagascar. Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences 5:578–582 (in French). Errata.
- Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, I. 1839. Notice sur deux nouveaux genres de mammifères carnassiers, les Ichneumies, du continent African, et les Galidies, de Madagascar. Magasin de Zoologie (2)1:1–39.
- Gray, J.E. 1865. A revision of the genera and species of viverrine animals (Viverridae) founded on the collection in the British Museum. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1864:502–579.
- Hawkins, A.F.A., Durbin, J. & Dollar, L. 2008. . In IUCN. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on August 3, 2010.
- Mivart, St.G. 1882. On the classification and distribution of the Aeluroidea. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1882:135–208.
- Palmer, T. 1904. Index generum mammalium: a list of the genera and families of mammals. North American Fauna 23:1–984.
- Wozencraft, W.C. 2005. Order Carnivora. Pp. 532–628 in Wilson, D.E. & Reeder, D.M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: a taxonomic and geographic reference. 3rd ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols., 2142 pp. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0