NEW SUBSPECIES OF MAMMALS FROM EQUATORIAL 



AFRICA 



By EDMUND HELLER 



NATURALIST, SMITHSONIAN AFRICAN EXPEDITION 



Further study of the collection of mammals from British East 

 Africa and L^ganda now in the United States National Museum, 

 secured by the Smithsonian African Expedition under the direction 

 of Colonel Roosevelt and the Paul J. Rainey African Expedition, has 

 brought to light the several new forms of carnivores and rodents 

 described in the present paper. 



THOS 



Jackals and Coyotes 



The jackals and their American representatives the coyotes are 

 separable from the true wolves, which are typical of the genus Canis, 

 by several constant dental characters which seem to justify the 

 recognition of the group under t]je generic name Thos first proposed 

 by Oken in 1816 for the Indian jackal. Cants aureus. Oken placed 

 four specific names under his group name Thos, the last of which, 

 Canis vulgaris, he particularly mentions as being the Thos of the 

 ancients and on this account it should stand as the type of the genus. 

 Canis vulgaris is a synonym of C. aureus. Thos may be defined as 

 a group of Canidae having long slender Vulpes-Wke canines, small 

 outer incisors, small carnassials, upper molar teeth with well marked 

 cingulums and the fourth lower premolar witK a minute extra cusp 

 on its hinder border. The genus Canis or the wolves are distinguish- 

 able by their much thicker and shorter canines ; their greatly en- 

 larged outer incisors which are more than twice the size of the inner 

 ones, being somewhat hyena-like in this respect ; large carnassial 

 teeth ; upper molars without a definite cingulum ; and the fourth 

 lower pre-molar without a third cusp on its posterior border. 



East equatorial Africa or rather Northeast Africa generally is 

 supplied with more species of jackals than any other region. Three 

 distinct species are found living together on the same plains over 

 most of the territory of British East Africa. The most distinct of 

 the three species in coloration is the black-backed or T. mesomclas 

 which has the black of the back sharply marked ofif from the bright 

 rufous of the sides. The Indian species, T. aureus, which here reaches 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 63, No. 7 



