Talk:Dasyproctidae

Untitled

Is the picture correct? Looks a lot like a hare...Jorge Stolfi 02:43, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No, it is nor correct. It is neither a hare nor an agouti, but a mara. I already deleted it, but it was reinserted by someone. I will now remove it again. Probably it should be uploaded under a new title so that this confusion will not rise again. -- Baldhur 07:18, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Agoutidae?

If both Agouti and Dasyprocta are included in the family, shouldn't Agoutidae Gray, 1821 have priority over Dasyproctidae (Gray, 1825)? McKenna and Bell use Agoutidae and they don't seem to indicate any problems with the name. Helioseus (talk) 22:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

That sounds plausible. The only reference I've got that doesn't consider them separate families (Encyclopaedia of Mammals, Gould & McKay, eds., 1998) uses Dasyproctidae, but doesn't explain why. I've certainly got no objection if more recent (or definitive) sources use Agoutidae instead. Anaxial (talk) 23:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Molecular results (Rowe and Honeycutt, 2002) have shown that the group in a broad sense is paraphyletic with respect to the Caviidae so they need to be split. The issue between Agoutidae vs. Cuniculidae is not the familial authority, but the validity of Cuniculus Brisson, 1762 as a genus. There was a 1998 ICZN ruling that recognized Cuniculus thereby making Cuniculidae Miller & Gidley, 1918 the valid familial name for the pacas. Woods and Kilpatrick (2005) recognize Cuniculidae and explain this in Mammal Sp. of World vol 3. Incidentally, the statement in the article that some people use Cuniculidae because Agoutidae is confusing is simply silly. --Aranae (talk) 23:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. Taking a quick look at the paleo literature, it looks like there's a third family to split off here. Everyone except McKenna and Bell treats Cephalomyidae as a valid family, probably basal to several living families. I'll add it to the template. Helioseus (talk) 05:18, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like some of these really old "dasyproctids" are actually basal caviods. McKB doesn't even treat it as a subfamily or tribe. I'll leave it to you to assign genera to Dasyproctidae vs. Cephalomyidae. --Aranae (talk) 06:41, 7 December 2007 (UTC)