Tuco-tuco

Common card · No. 425885

A tuco-tuco is a neotropical rodent in the family Ctenomyidae found in South America from Peru and central Brazil southward. The only living genus of the family, Ctenomys, includes approximately 60 different species. The relationships among the species are debated by taxonomists. It has been described that they are in a state of "taxonomic chaos", but banded karyotypes have been used to help make progress on their taxonomic study. Their closest relatives are degus and other octodontids. The common name, "tuco-tuco", comes from the "tuc-tuc" sound they make while they dig their burrows. In South America they have an ecological role equivalent to that of the pocket gophers of North America. They occupy an ecological niche previously taken by gondwanatheres such as Patagonia earlier in the Cenozoic.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Ezequiel Racker, CC BY 4.0