| Brown-tailed mongoose | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Plate of Galidia olivacea, a synonym of the brown-tailed mongoose, from 1839. The tail is incomplete. [1] | |
| 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, brown-tailed vontsira, Malagasy brown-tailed mongoose, or salano (Salanoia concolor) is a species of mammal in the family Eupleridae. It is endemic to Madagascar. Its natural habitat is moist lowland tropical forest. It is threatened by habitat loss. [2]
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]