l62 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 69 



while in the other there are small, very narrow elongated patches 

 of white hairs in front of the ears. 



Specimens examined : Boquete, 4 ' ; Mount Pirre, 1 ; Rio Indio 

 (near Gatun), 1. 



Subfamily MELINAE. Tayras, Skunks 

 Genus TAYRA Oken. Tayras 



The genus Tayra, as represented in Panama, is a large weasel-like 

 animal, black in general color, but with the head and neck brown. 

 The single form known from the region is a link in a chain of sub- 

 species extending from South America north to southern Mexico. 



TAYRA BARBARA BIOLOGIAE (Thomas) 



Panama Tayra 



Galictis barbara biologiae Thomas, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 7, Vol. 5, 

 p. 146, January, 1900. Type from Calovevora, Veragua, Panama. 



The tayra is the largest and most powerful Middle American 

 member of the family. In its several forms it ranges uninterruptedly 

 from South America north to southern Mexico. The Panama race 

 was based on a female from Calovevora which Thomas (/. c.) 

 regarded as a smaller animal than T. b. senex of Mexico. Compari- 

 son of fully adult males, however, seems to indicate that the reverse 

 is true. T. b. biologiae differs otherwise from T. b. senex in the 

 brownish instead of grayish head and neck. An adult male from 

 Chunchumayo, Peru, assumed to represent T. b. peruana Tschudi 

 seems to differ from T. b. biologies in the lighter color of the head 

 and neck and somewhat smaller skull with noticeably smaller teeth. 



A fine male, without a breast spot, obtained at Gatun, was shot one 

 day as it slowly descended the trunk of a tree in the forest. No 

 others were observed by me, but the species is not infrequently killed 

 by hunters. I saw several skins taken by American hunters at Gatun 

 who, for lack of a better vernacular name, referred to the animals 

 as " black cats." 



Under the specific name Galictis barbara, Alston (1879, p. 80) 

 mentions specimens received by the Zoological Society of London 

 from Panama. Bangs (1902, p. 49) in noting a specimen collected 

 for him at Bugaba by W. W. Brown, Jr., says : " The black -headed 

 Central American form is a very strongly marked subspecies." 

 Anthony (1916, p. 372) lists specimens from Tacarcuna and Tapalisa, 

 exhibiting considerable range of individual variation, especially in 



1 Three in collection Mus. Comp. Zool. ; one in Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 



