Product Code Database
Vesper mice are rodents belonging to the genus Calomys. They are widely distributed in South America. Some species are notable as the vectors of Argentinian hemorrhagic fever and Bolivian hemorrhagic fever.
The genus was originally named Hesperomys, but was changed to Calomys in 1962.
In following years, authors like Johann Andreas Wagner and Spencer Fullerton Baird expanded the genus to include additional American species, such as those placed now in Scapteromys, Oxymycterus, Abrothrix, and Peromyscus. In 1874, Elliott Coues designated Mus bimaculatus Waterhouse as the type species of Hesperomys. In 1888, Herluf Winge used Hesperomys in a sense similar to modern Calomys (but confusingly placed species related to what is now known as Oryzomys in Calomys), but in the same year Oldfield Thomas argued that Hesperomys could not be separated from the ( Cricetus). In 1896, however, he united it with Eligmodontia instead, where it remained until he reinstated it for modern Calomys in 1916. He did not use Calomys (introduced by Waterhouse in 1837 for Mus bimaculatus), because he thought it to be preoccupied name by an earlier name Callomys d'Orbigny and Geoffroy, 1830. In 1962, Philip Hershkovitz noted that the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature mandates that a name cannot be considered preoccupied even when it differs by only one letter from another, so Callomys cannot invalidate Calomys. As Calomys Waterhouse, 1837, and Hesperomys Waterhouse, 1839, both had Mus bimaculatus as their type species, the two are objective synonyms and the older name, Calomys, prevails; since then, Hesperomys has no longer been in use as a valid name.
Further reading
|
|
