Dasyprocta
Eleven or more species, seven of which are represented in the Zoochat galleries.
Taxonomic note: Patton
et al in
Mammals of South America describe the taxonomic situation of
Dasyprocta as "chaotic" and "in critical need of revision".
Mammalian Species lists eleven species in the genus:
azarae, coibae, cristata, fuliginosa, guamara, kalinowskii, leporina, mexicana, prymnolopha, punctata, ruatanica (here, with a key:
Dasyprocta ruatanica), as does Wilson and Reeder's
Mammal Species of the World (here, with subspecies:
Mammal Species of the World - Browse: Dasyprocta), and this is followed directly on Wikipedia.
Patton
et al in
Mammals of South America have a list which is substantially different to the eleven species listed above (
azarae, croconota, fuliginosa, guamara, kalinowskii, leporina, prymnolopha, punctata, variegata), although there are several reasons for this:
1:
cristata is treated (provisionally) as a synonym of
leporina in Patton
et al.
2: the
croconota of Patton
et al is treated as a subspecies of
leporina in Wilson and Reeder.
3: the
variegata of Patton
et al is treated as a subspecies of
punctata in Wilson and Reeder (although the two species have entirely distinct distributional ranges).
4: the strictly Central American species (
coibae from an island off Panama,
mexicana from Mexico, and
ruatanica from an island off Honduras) are not covered in Patton
et al as they are extralimital.
Patton
et al also note the description in 2013 of
Dasyprocta iacki (as a split from
D. leporina), although this new species doesn't appear to be readily recognised currently. They also note a revision in 1999 which produced twelve species in Brazil alone, a situation that seems to only be followed within Brazil.
Below is a combined list of species as per the above paragraphs. I have neglected the inclusion of subspecies here, because of the taxonomic confusion. Species photos will follow the initial list (subspecies may be named on some of these photos as an aside).
Azara's Agouti Dasyprocta azarae
Coiba Agouti Dasyprocta coibae (not pictured here)
Crested Agouti Dasyprocta cristata (not pictured here)
(Synonymised with
D. leporina by Patton
et al; others have synonymised it with
D. fuliginosa. Unlikely to be a valid species)
Orange Agouti Dasyprocta croconota (not pictured here)
(Otherwise treated as a subspecies of
D. leporina)
Black Agouti Dasyprocta fuliginosa
Orinoco Agouti Dasyprocta guamara (not pictured here)
Kalinowski's Agouti Dasyprocta kalinowskii (not pictured here)
Brazilian Agouti Dasyprocta leporina
(Also called the Red-rumped or Orange-rumped or Golden-rumped Agouti)
Mexican Agouti Dasyprocta mexicana
Black-rumped Agouti Dasyprocta prymnolopha
Central American Agouti Dasyprocta punctata
Ruatan Island Agouti Dasyprocta ruatanica (not pictured here)
Brown Agouti Dasyprocta variegata
(Otherwise treated as a subspecies of
D. punctatus although, as noted earlier, the two species have entirely distinct distributional ranges with a separation of a couple of thousand kilometres between them)
...........................................................................
Azara's Agouti Dasyprocta azarae
Photo by
@ro6ca66 at Cotswold Wildlife Park, UK
Azara's agouti : Cotswold WP : 27 Jun 2014 | ZooChat
Photo by
@devilfish in the wild (in the grounds of Santa Cruz Zoo), Bolivia. Note that due to the general taxonomic confusion in this genus, many mammal lists for Bolivia don't even include
D. azarae because the subspecies in this country are instead attached to
D. variegata (
D. punctata in synonymy).
Wild agouti, March 2016 | ZooChat
Photo by
@Giant Eland at Zoo de Buenos Aires, Argentina (red form)
2013 Zoo de Buenos Aires | ZooChat
Black Agouti Dasyprocta fuliginosa
Photo by
@devilfish at Quistococha Zoo, Peru
Black agouti, May 2016 | ZooChat
Brazilian Agouti Dasyprocta leporina
Photo by
@Chlidonias at Wellington Zoo, New Zealand (this animal came from Szeged Zoo, Hungary, for which Zootierliste notes "no subspecific status")
Brazilian Agouti (Dasyprocta leporina) | ZooChat
Photo below by
@Zaz at Kishinev Zoo, Moldova
Labelled as "St. Vincent Agouti", and currently identified on Zootierliste as "St. Vincent Agouti
Dasyprocta leporina albida". Older photos in various zoos' galleries, presumably using either an older Zootierliste classification or that of the zoos' themselves, may be labelled as
Dasyprocta leporina aguti. The agoutis on the Caribbean islands were introduced from mainland South America in pre-European times. There are differing opinions on their subspecific identities, from at one extreme all being treated as separate subspecies of
D. leporina (e.g.
albida, antillensis, fulvus, noblei), and at the other all being lumped together with the mainland subspecies
aguti (the type-locality for which was Surinam). I have no idea on the origins of the captive stock, which is currently kept in twelve zoos in Europe according to Zootierliste (referenced as "2018 ZIMS", although ZIMS actually lists them all as
aguti), whether they actually came from St. Vincent initially or if they are a general mix - or even actually mainland
aguti - with zoos simply using the name "St. Vincent". Various American zoos also label their stock as St. Vincent Agoutis.
St Vincent Agouti in Kishinev Zoo | ZooChat
Mexican Agouti Dasyprocta mexicana
Photo by
@Giant Eland at Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico
2013 Chapultepec Zoo | ZooChat
Black-rumped Agouti Dasyprocta prymnolopha
Photo by
@MagpieGoose at Magdeburg Zoo, Germany
Black-rumped Agouti | ZooChat
Central American Agouti Dasyprocta punctata
There are numerous named subspecies (about fourteen or so) over this species' range in Central and northern South America. They are extremely variable in appearance, as can be seen from the selection of photos of wild animals below, and it may be a species complex. I'm not going to sort through the subspecies due to the taxonomic issues mentioned earlier for the genus. A list of 19 subspecies can be seen on the
punctata page of Wilson and Reeder's
Mammal Species of the World, but note that it includes those subspecies which would be included in
Dasyprocta variegata if that species is split from
punctata:
Mammal Species of the World - Browse: punctata
The photos of wild animals below are arranged in their north-to-south distribution.
Photo by
@Fallax in the wild, Mexico (there are two subspecies in Mexico, namely
chiapensis and
yucatanica - the one pictured here is the latter subspecies
yucatanica)
https://www.zoochat.com/community/media/central-american-agouti.675787/
Photo by
@Maguari in the wild, Costa Rica (there are three or four subspecies in Costa Rica; apparently the one at Monteverde, where this photo was taken, is
richmondi)
Central American Agouti at Monteverde Lodge, 19/04/14 | ZooChat
Photo by
@Newzooboy in the wild, Costa Rica (subspecies
nuchalis)
Central American Agouti - Apr 2019 - ZooChat
Photo by
@Vision in the wild, Panama (subspecies
isthmicus)
Central American agouti, Dasyprocta punctata - ZooChat
Photo by
@ronnienl in the wild, Ecuador (subspecies
chocoensis)
Agouti | ZooChat
Photo by
@Giant Eland at Quito Zoo, Ecuador (I'm not sure which subspecies this might be, but the species comes in several colour forms including this one with the dark pelage and distinctive patch of white-tipped hairs on the rump)
Central American agouti (Dasyprocta punctata) species ID? - ZooChat
Brown Agouti Dasyprocta variegata
Photo by
@devilfish at Vesty Pakos Zoo, Bolivia
Brown agouti, March 2016 | ZooChat
