Abrotrichini
| Abrotrichini Temporal range: Pliocene to Recent |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Abrothrix sanborni | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Rodentia |
| Family: | Cricetidae |
| Subfamily: | Sigmodontinae |
| Tribe: |
Abrotrichini D'Elía, Pardiñas, Teta, and Patton, 2007 |
| Type genus | |
|
Abrothrix Waterhouse, 1837 |
|
| Genera | |
Abrotrichini, also known as the Andean clade or southern Andean clade, is a tribe of rodents in the subfamily Sigmodontinae. It includes about fifteen species in five genera, distributed in South America from southern Peru to southernmost South America, including the Patagonian steppes. The earliest known fossils are from the Pliocene of Argentina.
Abrotrichines were universally placed in the tribe Akodontini until the 1990s, and some were even classified within the genus Akodon. Allozyme studies in the early 1990s first provided evidence for their distinction from Akodontini, and in 1999 a study analyzing sequences of the gene found further evidence for the distinction between Akodontini and this group and proposed the name Abrotrichini for the latter. The name Abrotrichini remained formally unavailable under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, however, because their proposal had been conditional. Thus, the clade remained without a valid name and for this reason it was included in Akodontini in the 2005 third edition of Mammal Species of the World. Other phylogenetic studies, which also incorporated nuclear genes, affirmed the distinction between Akodontini and the new group. In 2007, Guillermo D'Elía and coworkers published a full diagnosis of the tribe Abrotrichini, validating the name.
Abrotrichini includes five genera—Abrothrix, Chelemys, Geoxus, Notiomys, and Pearsonomys—which fall into two major subgroups, one including only Abrothrix and one including the four other genera.Abrothrix has formerly been included in Akodon and includes about nine species, among which are the northernmost abrotrichine, Abrothrix jelskii as well as far southern forms such as Abrothrix lanosus. Within the remaining group, Chelemys is sister to the remaining genera; it includes three species found in central and southern Chile and nearby Argentina. The remaining three genera, each of which includes a single species, are closely related and share fossorial (digging) habits.Geoxus occurs in central and southern Chile and nearby Argentina,Notiomys in southern Argentina, and Pearsonomys in central Chile.
...
Wikipedia