Brucie

For uses of Brucie as a nickname please see Brucey.

The Brucies are a recently described genus of South American cricetid rodents, Brucepattersonius.

The genus, and four species, were described in a paper by Hershkovitz (1998). They are all found in the Atlantic rain forests of south-eastern Brazil. Subsequently, Mares and Braun (2000) have assigned three further species, found during the 1990s in the neighbouring Misiones province of Argentina and previously unidentified, to the same genus. One of Hershkovitz's species was subsequently found to be identical to another by Vilela et al. (2006). The genus was named in honour of Bruce Patterson, MacArthur Curator at the Department of Zoology (Mammals), The Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.

The brucies belong to the subfamily Sigmodontinae and the tribe Akodontini. They are ground-dwellers, and may have a preference for higher altitudes within the rain forest area. Each species is thought to be restricted to a limited area. It is uncertain if they are all distinct species, since many are known from very few specimen (notably the three Argentine species, which were each described from a single specimen), which makes it difficult to know how variable Brucies are.

The following seven species are now classified in the genus:

• Gray-bellied Brucie Brucepattersonius griserufescens
• Guaraní Brucie Brucepattersonius guarani
• Red-bellied Brucie Brucepattersonius igniventris
• Ihering's Hocicudo Brucepattersonius iheringi
• Misiones Brucie Brucepattersonius misionensis
• Arroyo of Paradise Brucie Brucepattersonius paradisus
• Soricine Brucie Brucepattersonius soricinus

Ihering's Hocuicudo was known earlier than the other species, and had formerly been classified in various ways, most recently in genus Oxymycterus.

References

• Hershkovitz, P. (1998). Report of some sigmodontinae rodents collected in southeastern Brazil with description of a new genus and six new species. Bonner Zoologische Beitraege, 47, 193-256.
• Mares, M. A., and J. K. Braun (2000) Three new species of Brucepattersonius (Rodentia: Sigmodontinae) from Misiones Province, Argentina. Occasional Papers of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, 9, 1-3.
• Vilela, J. F., J. A. de Oliveira, and C. R. Bonvicino (2006). Taxonomic status of Brucepattersonius albinasus (Rodentia: Sigmodontinae). Zootaxa, 1199, 61-68.