New trip report: Panama
I was in Panama a week ago, following in Cheryl Antonucci’s footsteps. Fourteen species, half of which were new for me, including Cacomistle, Bangs’s Mountain Squirrel and Panamanian Night Monkey, plus a fabulous encounter with False Killer Whales. The Mexican Harvest Mouse was the 1499th mammal on my life list….
Jon
3 Comments
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Jon Hall
Thanks Ben – wow, talk about viral mis-ID. There are so many wrong pictures on the internet. Quite remarkable. I will not add to the confusion! Back to 1498 then… cheers
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geomalia
IIRC, there was only the one mis-identified wikipedia photo online in 2011. Now, there are dozens. I should have taken it down back then.
It is interesting that Bang’s Mountain Squirrel is no longer placed in its own genus, and is now in Sciurus. I was skeptical, but I looked up the molecular studies and they support this.
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geomalia
Your photo is of Red-tailed Squirrel (Sciurus granatensis), not Bang’s Mountain Squirrel (Syntheosciurus brochus). All of the photos online are wrong (including wikipedia). My first international trip was to Panama in 2011, and I was very confused about the squirrels at Los Quetzales. I emailed my (terrible) photos to Jackie Willis (the first author on this paper: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1381060?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents). She confirmed that the large, common Sciurus was Red-tailed Squirrel, and that the squirrel I thought was a Pygmy Squirrel was Bang’s Mountain Squirrel (for which this is one of very few known locations). I’ll forward you her photos.