128 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 69 



DASYPROCTA PUNCTATA DARIENSIS Goldman 



Darien Agouti ; Nequi 



[Plate 27, figs. 1, io, lb] 



Dasyprocta punctata dariensis Goldman, Smiths. Misc. Coll., Vol. 60, No. 22, 

 pp. 11-12, February 28, 1913. Type from near head of Rio Limon, Mount 

 Pirre, eastern Panama (altitude 5,200 feet). 



The Darien agouti replaces the Isthmian form of the Dasyprocta 

 punctata group east of the Canal Zone where it has an altitudinal 

 range from sea level on San Miguel Bay to over 5,000 feet on the 

 summits of the Pirre Range near the Colombian frontier. Con- 

 trasted with D. p. isthmica of the Canal Zone, the Darien repre- 

 sentative of the group is larger and darker in general color. The 

 top of the head is blacker. The long hairs on the rump lack the basal 

 annulations usually present in D. p. isthmica, and the tips of these 

 hairs are very pale buff, silvery gray or whitish, in contrast with the 

 orange buffy back ; in D. p. isthmica the rump and back are more 

 uniform in general tone. D. p. dariensis differs from D. colombiana 

 of the Santa Marta region of Colombia, which is doubtless a form 

 of the same group, in more buffy, less grayish coloration and in 

 important cranial details, the rostrum being heavier and the anterior 

 part of the jugal less extended vertically ; in D. colombiana the jugal, 

 more developed upward along the orbital border, approaches the 

 lachrymal. It may be not very unlike D. variegata Tschudi, from 

 Peru, but is very different from Tschudi's figure, and compared with 

 an Ecuadorean specimen in the National Museum, assumed to be 

 near D. variegata, is decidedly larger and darker colored. In the 

 pallid coloration of the tips of the elongated hairs on the rump 

 D. p. dariensis resembles D. callida of San Miguel Island, but the 

 latter is a much grayer animal throughout. 



Among the quaint accounts of animals encountered by Lionel 

 Wafer (1729, p. 330) in eastern Panama during the summer of 1681 

 is one which apparently applies to the Darien agouti. He says : 



" Here are Rabbits, called by our English, Indian Conies. They 

 are as large as our Hares ; But I know not that this Country has any 

 Hares. These Rabbits have no Tails, and but little short Ears ; and 

 the Claws of their Feet are long. They lodge in the Roots of Trees, 

 making no Burrows ; and the Indians hunt them, but there is no great 

 Plenty of them. They are very good Meat, and eat rather moister 

 than ours." The statement in regard to burrows is, of course, 

 erroneous. 



