Brown-tailed Mongoose
Encyclopedia
The brown-tailed mongoose, Malagasy brown-tailed mongoose, or salano (Salanoia
Salanoia
Salanoia is a genus of euplerid carnivoran with two currently described species found in Madagascar. They are mongoose-like, which is reflected in the older versions of their English names, for example brown-tailed mongoose which is now called brown-tailed vontsira. The name Salanoia is derived...

 concolor
) is a species of mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

 in the Eupleridae
Eupleridae
The family Eupleridae is a group of carnivorans endemic to Madagascar and comprising 10 known species in seven genera. Probably the best known species is the Fossa , in the subfamily Euplerinae...

 family. It is endemic to Madagascar. Its natural habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

 is subtropical or tropical dry forest
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

s. It is threatened by habitat loss.

Taxonomy

The brown-tailed mongoose was first described in 1837 by French zoologist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was a French zoologist and an authority on deviation from normal structure. He coined the term ethology.He was born in Paris, the son of Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire...

 under the names Galidia unicolor and Galidia olivacea. He placed both in the genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Galidia, together with the ring-tailed mongoose
Ring-tailed mongoose
The Ring-tailed mongoose is a euplerid that lives on the island of Madagascar. There is actually much disagreement about the placement of Madagascar's carnivores including the Ring-tailed mongoose, within the phylogenetic tree. Recent molecular work by Anne Yoder et al...

 (Galidia elegans), which is now recognized as the only species of that genus. 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. In 1865, John Edward Gray
John Edward Gray
John Edward Gray, FRS was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray ....

 placed concolor and olivacea in their own subgenus
Subgenus
In biology, a subgenus is a taxonomic rank directly below genus.In zoology, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the generic name and the specific epithet: e.g. the Tiger Cowry of the Indo-Pacific, Cypraea tigris Linnaeus, which...

 of Galidia, which he called Salanoia
Salanoia
Salanoia is a genus of euplerid carnivoran with two currently described species found in Madagascar. They are mongoose-like, which is reflected in the older versions of their English names, for example brown-tailed mongoose which is now called brown-tailed vontsira. The name Salanoia is derived...

. In 1882, St. George Jackson Mivart also separated olivacea and concolor from Galidia, and placed them in a separate genus Hemigalidia, without mentioning Salanoia. In his 1904 Index generum mammalium, Palmer noted that Salanoia, the first name to be published, was the proper name for the genus. Although Glover Morrill Allen
Glover Morrill Allen
Glover Morrill Allen was an American zoologist.He was born at Walpole, New Hampshire, the son of Reverend Nathaniel Glover Allen and Harriet Ann Allen, and studied at Harvard University,...

, in 1939, still listed two species, which he called Salanoia olivacea and S. unicolor, by 1972 R. Albignac recognized a single species only, which he called Salanoia concolor. A second species of Salanoia, Salanoia durrelli
Salanoia durrelli
Salanoia durrelli, also known as Durrell's vontsira, is a Madagascan mammal in the family Eupleridae of the order Carnivora. It is most closely related to the brown-tailed mongoose , with which it forms the genus Salanoia. The two are genetically similar, but morphologically distinct, leading...

, was described in 2010.

Literature cited

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