A REVIEW OF THE GENUS HOPLOMYS (THICK- 



SPINED RATS), WITH DESCRIPTION OF A 



NEW FORM FROM ISLA ESCUDO 



DE VERAGUAS, PANAMA 



By CHARLES O. HANDLEY, JR. 



Associate Curator, Division of Mammals 



United States National Museum 



Smithsonian Institution 



A specimen of the thick-spined rat, Hoplomys gymnurus Thomas, 

 that Alexander Wetmore shot in a thicket on Isla Escudo de 

 Veraguas on the morning of March I, 1958, is probably the only- 

 mammal from this Caribbean island that is preserved in a museum. 

 Other rats that Wetmore saw in coconut palms on the same day 

 apparently were of another genus. No other mammals have been 

 reported from this locality except feral hogs. Although Indians once 

 lived on the island, human beings are now only transients there. 



Escudo de Veraguas is a low island, about 1 mile wide and 

 2.5 miles long, in the Caribbean Sea, 11 miles off the base of the 

 Valiente Peninsula, Province of Bocas del Toro, north coast of the 

 Republic of Panama. Wetmore (Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 139, 

 No. 2, 1959) has given a detailed account of the history, geography, 

 and zoological position of the island. 



Other echimyid genera, Diplomys and Proechimys, are known to 

 occur on certain islands in the Gulf of Panama and elsewhere, but no 

 insular populations of Hoplomys have been reported. The Escudo de 

 Veraguas Hoplomys differs in so many respects from other known 

 populations of the thick-spined rat that it has prompted a brief review 

 of the genus. 



Many of the National Museum (US) specimens reported here were 

 collected in cooperation with the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory, 

 Panama. I express my thanks to Carl Johnson, director, and other 

 members of the laboratory staff for numerous courtesies and assistance 

 in fieldwork. Some of the specimens were collected by C. M. Keenan 

 of the Army Preventive Medicine Survey Detachment, Ft. Clayton, 

 Canal Zone. Richard Van Gelder kindly permitted the study of speci- 

 mens in the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), New 

 York. 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 139, NO. 4 





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