Integrative taxonomy of the southernmost tucu-tucus in the world: differentiation of the nominal forms associated with Ctenomys magellanicus Bennett, 1836 (Rodentia, Hystricomorpha, Ctenomyidae)

Uncovering the species diversity of subterranean rodents at the end of the World: three new species of Patagonian tuco-tucos (Rodentia, Hystricomorpha,Ctenomys)

“…2). Haplotypes of C. coyhaiquensis form a clade (PP = 0.99; BS = 96) that is sister, in a weakly supported relationship (PP = 0.78; BS = 74), to a lineage composed by a single haplotype recovered from a specimen of Ctenomys referred as C. fodax in previous studies (e.g., Parada et al, 2011) but which according to Teta, D'Elía & Opazo (2020) does not belong to fodax but to an undetermined, not necessarily new, form allied to sericeus (C. aff. C. sericeus).…”

“…The haplotype signaled with @ was retrieved from a specimen identified as C. fodax by Parada et al (2011) and as C. sp. 1 by Teta, D'Elía & Opazo (2020). Locality data for each specimen is provided in File S1.…”

“…Sequences were retrieved from Genbank and generated in this work from specimens housed in Colección Felix de Azara (CFA-MA, Buenos Aires, Argentina). New sequences were gathered as in Teta, D'Elía & Opazo (2020) from pieces of skin of specimens collected between 20 and 40 years ago. DNA from these samples was extracted following the protocol of Velazco & Patterson (2013) and the cyt b gene was amplified in two fragments using primers MVZ05-oct439R and OCT406F-MVZ16.…”

“…Despite that the systematics of this group has been intensively studied during the last five decades (e.g., Reig et al, 1992;Tiranti et al, 2005;Parada et al, 2011;Parada et al, 2012;Londoño Gaviria et al, 2019), our knowledge about the alpha taxonomy of Ctenomys is still far from complete (see a synthesis in Bidau, 2015). In fact, new candidate species are frequently identified (e.g., Parada et al, 2011;Caraballo & Rossi, 2017) and described (e.g., Freitas et al, 2012;Gardner, Salazar Bravo & Cook, 2014), at the time that some synonymies are also proposed (e.g., Teta, D'Elía & Opazo, 2020).…”

“…Besides the species descriptions, a handful of studies have focused on taxonomic aspects of Patagonian Ctenomys, most of which has been centered on western and southern populations currently assigned to C. magellanicus (e.g., Lizarralde et al, 2001;Teta, D'Elía & Opazo, 2020). In turn, the information on populations from eastern and northeastern portions of Patagonia is scarce.…”