Brown-tailed mongoose

Brown-tailed mongoose
Plate of Galidia olivacea, a synonym of the brown-tailed mongoose, from 1839. The tail is incomplete.[1]
Conservation status
Vulnerable  (IUCN 3.1)[2]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Eupleridae
Genus:	Salanoia
Species:	S. concolor
Binomial name
Salanoia concolor (I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1837)
Brown-tailed mongoose range

The brown-tailed mongoose, Malagasy brown-tailed mongoose, or salano (Salanoia concolor) is a species of mammal in the Eupleridae family. It is endemic to Madagascar. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry forests. It is threatened by habitat loss.

Taxonomy

The brown-tailed mongoose was first described in 1837 by French zoologist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire under the names Galidia unicolor and Galidia olivacea. He placed both in the genus Galidia, together with the ring-tailed mongoose (Galidia elegans),^[3] which is now recognized as the only species of that genus.^[4] However, the name unicolor had been a misprint for concolor, and the name was corrected in an erratum and in a later note by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.^[5] In 1865,^{[Note 1]} John Edward Gray placed concolor and olivacea in their own subgenus of Galidia, which he called Salanoia.^[7] In 1882, St. George Jackson Mivart also separated olivacea and concolor from Galidia, and placed them in a separate genus Hemigalidia, without mentioning Salanoia.^[8] In his 1904 Index generum mammalium, Palmer noted that Salanoia, the first name to be published, was the proper name for the genus.^[9] Although Glover Morrill Allen, in 1939, still listed two species, which he called Salanoia olivacea and S. unicolor,^[10] by 1972 R. Albignac recognized a single species only, which he called Salanoia concolor.^[11] A second species of Salanoia, Salanoia durrelli, was described in 2010.^[12]

Notes

References

Literature cited

• Albignac, R. 1972. The Carnivora of Madagascar. Pp. 667–682 in Battistini, R. & Richard-Vindard, G. (eds.). Biogeography and Ecology in Madagascar. The Hague: W. Junk B.B., Publishers.
• Allen, G.M. 1939. A checklist of African mammals. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 83:1–763.
• Durbin, J., Funk, S.M., Hawkins, F., Hills, D.M., Jenkins, P.D., Moncrieff, C.B. and Ralainasolo, F.B. 2010. Investigations into the status of a new taxon of Salanoia (Mammalia: Carnivora: Eupleridae) from the marshes of Lac Alaotra, Madagascar (subscription required). Systematics and Biodiversity, published online in advance of print: 15 pp.
• Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, I. 1837. Notice sur deux nouveaux genres de Mammifères carnassiers, les Ichneumies, du continent africain, et les Galidies, de Madagascar. Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences 5:578–582 (in French). Errata.
• Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, I. 1839. Notice sur deux nouveaux genres de mammifères carnassiers, les Ichneumies, du continent African, et les Galidies, de Madagascar. Magasin de Zoologie (2)1:1–39.
• Gray, J.E. 1865. A revision of the genera and species of viverrine animals (Viverridae) founded on the collection in the British Museum. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1864:502–579.
• Hawkins, A.F.A., Durbin, J. & Dollar, L. 2008. Salanoia concolor. In IUCN. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on August 3, 2010.
• Mivart, St.G. 1882. On the classification and distribution of the Aeluroidea. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1882:135–208.
• Palmer, T. 1904. Index generum mammalium: a list of the genera and families of mammals. North American Fauna 23:1–984.
• Wozencraft, W.C. 2005. Order Carnivora. Pp. 532–628 in Wilson, D.E. & Reeder, D.M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: a taxonomic and geographic reference. 3rd ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols., 2142 pp. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0