Notes on the Naked-tailed Armadillos. 3 



Snl)^enus TATOUA Gray. 



1865. Tatoua Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 378. 



1869. Tatoua Gray, Catal. Carnivorous, Pachydermatous and Edentate 

 Mammalia in the British INIuseum, p. 384. 



1873. Xenurus Gray, Hand-List of the Edentate, Thick-Skinned and Ru- 

 minant Mammals in the British Museum, p. 21. 



1898. Lysiurus Trouessart, Catal. Mamm. tarn vivent. quam foss., p 

 1146. 



Tyjje fpecies. — Tatoua unicwcta (Linnfeus). 



Subgeneric characters.— Crown armor consisting of 50 to 60 small, 

 roundish, irregularly arranged plates; ears rounded, funnel-formed, 

 densely coated with minute scales on outer side ; cheeks covered with 

 thin plates arranged in distinct rows. 



Subgenus ZIPHILA Gray. 



1873. ZiphUa Gi-ay, Hand-List of the Edentate, Thick-Skinned and Rumi- 

 nant Mammals in the British Museum, p. 22. Type Z. lugubris 

 Gray. 



1898. Ziphila Tronessart, Catal. Mamm. tarn vivent. quam foss., p. 1148. 



T'ype species. — Tatoim lugubris (Gray). 



Subgeneric characters. — Crown armor consisting of 30 to 40 symmetrically 

 arranged, mostly pentagonal or hexagonal plates ; ears pointed, not funnel- 

 formed, the outer side bare except along margin ; cheeks with a few 

 widely spaced, irregularly scattered scales. 



3. The Naked-tailed Armadillo of Central America. 



Dr. A. von Frantzius published the first record of the occurrence of a 

 naked-tailed armadillo in Central A merica in 1869. He was uncertain as to 

 the identification of the animal — the ' armadillo de zopilote ' of the Costa 

 Ricans, so called on account of the disagreeable buzzard-like odor of its 

 flesh— as he saw only a living individual and a skull. Both, however, 

 indicated an animal smaller than the Dasypns gymvurus of llliger (=D. 

 unicinctus Linneeus), to which he with hesitation referred the species. 

 Doubt was cast on this record by Alston in 1880, who found no naked- 

 tailed armadillos among the collections that served for the elaboration of 

 the mammals of the Biologia Centrali-Americana. 



In 1895 ^Ir. Frederick W. True recorded a small Tatoua from Chameli- 

 con, Honduras, the first positively known to have been taken in Central 

 America. In the absence of material for comparison, he regarded the 

 animal as " presumably the X\_eimrus'\ hispldus of Burmeister." 



Two years later Mr. A. Alfaro and Dr. J. A. Allen confirmed Dr. von 

 Frantzius' Costa Rican observations by recording the capture of a speci- 

 men at Suerre, Costa Rica. This animal is referred to ' Xeuurus gym- 

 nnrns' (= Tatoua unicincia) without comments on the doubts expressed 

 by Dr. von Frantzius, or on INIr. True's identification of the Honduras 

 specimen. 



