Red-crested tree-rat

Common card · No. 329769

The red-crested tree-rat or Santa Marta toro (Santamartamys rufodorsalis) is a species of tree-rat found in the monotypic genus Santamartamys in the family Echimyidae. It is nocturnal and is believed to feed on plant matter, and is mainly rufous, with young specimens having a grey coat. IUCN list the species as critically endangered: it is affected by feral cats, climate change, and the clearing of forest in its potential range in coastal Colombia. It is known only from three specimens, a specimen collected in 1898 in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and identified by Herbert Huntingdon Smith, a specimen identified by the American ornithologist and entomologist Melbourne Armstrong Carriker in 1913 at the same location, and a further specimen observed in the same location in 2011. Found at altitudes of 700 to 2,000 meters, the species is endemic to Colombia in an isolated area with high levels of biodiversity. The species was initially identified as Isothrix rufodorsalis in 1899, re-classified...

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