Article XXXIII. --THE TAMANDUA ANTEATERS. 

 By J. A. ALLEN. 



The Tamanduas have a wide geographical distribution, ex- 

 tending throughout the warmer parts of America, from 

 Paraguay to southern Mexico. They likewise vary greatly in 

 size and coloration, but as a rule have all been referred, 

 up to about 1889, to a single species, the Myrmecophaga 

 tetradactyla of Linnaeus, the Tamandua tetradactyla of recent 

 authors, with the exception of the so-called Long-tailed Taman- 

 dua (Tamandua longicaudata Wagner), which differs markedly 

 from the others in coloration and in the structure of the 

 nasals, but not in the length of the tail, as the name erro- 

 neously implies. It is nearly uniform straw-color, thus lack- 

 ing the peculiar pattern of coloration which characterizes the 

 T. tetradactyla group, and stands sufficiently by itself (see 

 this Bulletin, XX, 1904, p. 339) to be omitted from the 

 present consideration. 



A few other names may be assigned at once as synonyms 

 of tetradactyla. These are: (i) Myrmecophaga nigra Desm. 

 (ex Geoffroy MS.) Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., nouv. ed., XII, 

 1817), wholly black and probably a melanism; (2) Myrme- 

 cophaga bivittata Desm. (ex Geoffroy MS., /. c.), adopted by 

 J. E. Gray in 1865 in place of tetradactyla. 



In 1873, Gray (Hand-List of Edentate, Thick-skinned, and 

 Ruminant Mammals, 1873, p. 27) gave names to two ''varie- 

 ties" of his Tamandua bivittata "Var. i. Opisthomelas," 

 with the hinder part of the back black; and "Var. 3. Opis- 

 tholeuca," with the hinder part of the back white. The first 

 is from "Brazils," the other from Guatemala, Costa Rica, 

 Ecuador, Brazils, etc. Both appear to have been ignored by 

 subsequent writers. In 1899, Cope (Amer. Nat., XXIII, 

 Feb., 1889, p. 132) based the name Myrmecophaga straminea 

 on a single skin, the label of which had been lost, but which 

 came either from the west central part of Rio Grande do Sul 

 or Chapada, Matto Grosso, Brazil, regions quite remote 

 and zoologically quite different. In the same paper he 



[November, 1904.] [385] 2~> 



