White-Throated Woodrat
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| White-throated Woodrat | ||||||||||||||
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| Neotoma albigula Hartley, 1894 |
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The White-throated Woodrat (Neotoma albigula) is a species of rodent in the Cricetidae family. It is found from central Mexico north to Utah and Wyoming in the United States. It is primarily a western species in the United States, extending from central Texas west to southeastern California according to Macedo and Mares (1988). Since that work, populations east of the Rio Grande in New Mexico and Trans-Pecos Texas have been assigned to the White-toothed Woodrat (Neotoma leucodon) (Frey 2004).
The animal lives mostly in the Upper and Lower Sonoran life zones, occurring from pinyon-juniper woodland in higher country to desert habitats at lower elevations.
As with other species of woodrats, the White-throated Woodrat constructs middens of a variety of materials such as sticks, cactus parts, and miscellaneous debris. An above-ground chamber within the midden contains a nest lined with grasses and kept free of feces. In non-rocky areas, the den usually is several feet in diameter and most commonly built around the base of a shrub that gives additional cover. In areas of rocky outcrops, crevices often are utilized, with sticks and other materials preventing free access to the nesting chamber.
Molecular data suggest that this species separated from other species of the Neotoma floridana group (Neotoma floridana, Neotoma micropus, Neotoma leucodon) about 155,000 years ago during the Illionian age of the Pleistocene. This fits nicely with the oldest known fossils from Slaton, Texas. This rodent is a common fossil in Southwestern cave faunas, with over 20 fossil localities of Pleistocene age known from New Mexico alone.
[edit] References
- Baillie, J. 1996. Neotoma albigula. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 09 July 2007.
- Frey, J. K. 2004. Taxonomy and distribution of the mammals of New Mexico: An annotated checklist. Occasional Papers, Museum of Texas Tech University, no. 240:1-32.
- Harris, A. H. 1993. Quaternary vertebrates of New Mexico. Pp. 179-107, in Vertebrate paleontology in New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Bulletin 2.
- Macedo, R. H., and M. A. Mares. 1988. Neotoma albigula. Mammalian Species, no. 310:1-7.
- Musser, G. G., and M. D. Carleton. 2005. Superfamily Muroidea. Pp. 894-1531 in Mammal Species of the World a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder eds. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
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