Authority citation

Osgood, W.H. 1924-10-20. Review of living caenolestids with description of a new genus from Chile. Field Museum of Natural History, Zoological Series 14(2):165-172.

Authority publication link

Original name as described

Rhyncholestes raphanurus

Other common names

Chilean Caenolestid · Chilean Shrew-opossum · Fat-tailed Caenolestid · Long-nosed Caenolestid

Type material

FMNH:Mamm:22422

Type kind

holotype

Type specimen URI

Type locality

"forest at mouth of Rio Inio, south end of Chiloe Island, [Los Lagos Region,] Chile. S. lat. 43°20'."

Biogeographic realm

Neotropic

Country distribution

Chile

Subregion distribution

Chile(CLLL,CLLR) · Argentina(ARR)

Distribution notes

SC Chile (S Los Rios and Los Lagos Regions), including Chiloé I, and WC Argentina (Puerto Blest, Provincia de Río Negro).

Distribution references

Martin, G. M. (2011). Geographic distribution of Rhyncholestes raphanurus Osgood, 1924 (Paucituberculata: Caenolestidae), an endemic marsupial of the Valdivian Temperate Rainforest. Australian Journal of zoology, 59(2), 118-126.

Taxonomy notes

Mitochondrial phylogenies (cytochrome b; Ojala-Barbour et al. 2013) suggest a sister relationship between Rhyncholestes and Lestoros. Bublitz (1987) described the name continentalis as a distinct species based on dental variation. The name has generally been treated as a subspecies of _R. raphanurus_ since its description, although some researchers have suggested the variation used to describe continentalis does not support the recognition of two subspecies (e.g., Patterson 2008). Skull and dental morphology and morphometrics found morphological distinctions between the two subspecies, although for some traits the variation of continentalis fall within the variation of the nominate subspecies (González et al. 2020). Two subspecies are tentatively retained here, but molecular data should be used to validate them: _R. r. raphanurus_ and _R. r. continentalis_.

Taxonomy notes citation

Bublitz, J. (1987). Untersuchungen zur Systematik der rezenten Caenolestidae Trouessart, 1898 unter Verwendung craniometrischer Methoden. Bonner zoologische Monographien, 23, 1-96. · Patterson, B. D., & Gallardo, M. H. (1987). Rhyncholestes raphanurus. Mammalian Species, (286), 1-5. · Ojala-Barbour, R., Pinto, C. M., Brito M, J., Albuja V, L., Lee Jr, T. E., & Patterson, B. D. (2013). A new species of shrew-opossum (Paucituberculata: Caenolestidae) with a phylogeny of extant caenolestids. Journal of Mammalogy, 94(5), 967-982. · Patterson, B. D. (2008). Genus Rhyncholestes Osgood, 1924. In: A. L. Gardner, Mammals of South America, Volume 1: Marsupials, Xenarthrans, Shrews, and Bats. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 126-127. · González, B., Ferro-Muñoz, N., Calvache-Sánchez, C., Rojas, D., & Martin, G. M. (2024). Mind the gap: new records of Caenolestes in the Western Andes of Colombia challenge its current biogeographic patterns. Journal of Mammalogy, 105(4), 777-791.

IUCN Red List status

Near Threatened

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