SOUTH AMERICA 387 



it remained practically unknown thereafter until 1904, when 

 Goeldi (1904) published an account of two living individuals 

 sent to him at Para from the upper Rio Purus, Brazil. These 

 were the first he had known of in 20 years' acquaintance with 

 the fauna of the country. Another, perhaps from the same 

 region, was described by Ribeiro in 1919 as Dinomys pacarana 

 on the basis of its brown instead of black color; and two years 

 later Lonnberg named as a new race, occidentalis, a specimen 

 from near Gualea, Ecuador. The animal had meanwhile been 

 taken in Colombia, near La Candela, Huila (J. A. Allen, 1916b), 

 and this specimen was in 1921 made the type of D. gigas 

 Anthony. In 1922-23, Edmund Heller secured a series of 23 

 specimens from the natives about Buena Vista and Vista 

 Alegre on the Rio Chinchao, and at Pozuzo, Peru, and pur- 

 chased another at Manaos, Brazil. On the basis of the speci- 

 mens available in North American museums, Sanborn (1931) 

 reviewed the history of the species and showed that all the 

 names given doubtless applied to but a single form. In 1937 

 Dr. Erna Mohr (1937b) published an account, with photo- 

 graphic illustrations, of a live one in the zoological gardens at 

 Hamburg, with remarks on jireviously known specimens in 

 Europe. 



From Sanborn's account it appears that this large and 

 heavily built rodent is found in the Andean region from 

 "central Colombia through Ecuador to central Peru, and east 

 to the Rio Purus region of Brazil." Attaining a length of head 

 and body of about 730-790 mm., with a tail of about 190 mm., 

 it is of a black or brown color, with on each side of the midline 

 two more or less continuous, broad white stripes, and on the 

 sides two shorter rows of white spots. Apparently older 

 animals have the stripes broader and more conspicuously 

 white. The ears are short and rounded, the tail stout and 

 cylindrical; the skull measures in length some 153 mm. (about 

 6 inches) in the adult male, but the females are smaller, with a 

 skull length of about 141 mm., and the bodily proportions 

 correspondingly less. The incisors are disproportionally 

 large, the cheek teeth small relatively, each showing three 

 transverse enamel folds, with in the three last teeth a small 

 additional posterior fold. 



The Tupi name, pacarana, signifies "false paca," since the 

 size and color pattern recall those of the common agouti-like 



