''Nectomys'' is a genus of

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the Order (biology), order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are roden ...

in the tribe

Oryzomyini Oryzomyini is a tribe of rodents in the subfamily Sigmodontinae of the family Cricetidae. It includes about 120 species in about thirty genera,Weksler et al., 2006, table 1 distributed from the eastern United States to the southernmost parts of ...

of family

Cricetidae The Cricetidae are a family of rodents in the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. It includes true hamsters, voles, lemmings, muskrats, and New World rats and mice. At almost 608 species, it is the second-largest family of mammals, a ...

. Musser and Carleton, 2005. It is closely related to ''

Amphinectomys ''Amphinectomys savamis'', also known as the Ucayali water ratMusser and Carleton, 2005 or amphibious rat,Duff and Lawson, 2004 is a rodent from the Peruvian Amazon. It is placed as the only member of genus ''Amphinectomys'' in the tribe Oryzom ...

'' and was formerly considered congeneric with '' Sigmodontomys''. It consists of five species, which are

allopatric Allopatric speciation () – also referred to as geographic speciation, vicariant speciation, or its earlier name the dumbbell model – is a mode of speciation that occurs when biological populations become geographically isolated from ...

ally distributed across much of South America: '' Nectomys grandis'' in montane Colombia; '' Nectomys palmipes'' on

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

and in nearby

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in ...

, '' Nectomys apicalis'' in the western margins of the

Amazon biome The Amazon biome ( pt, Bioma Amazônia) contains the Amazon rainforest, an area of tropical rainforest, and other ecoregions that cover most of the Amazon basin and some adjacent areas to the north and east. The biome contains blackwater and whit ...

, '' Nectomys rattus'' in much of Amazonia, and '' Nectomys squamipes'' in the

Atlantic Forest The Atlantic Forest ( pt, Mata Atlântica) is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and t ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. These species are generally semiaquatic, are normally found near water, and are commonly called water rats.

Notes

References

Literature cited

* Rodent genera Taxa named by Wilhelm Peters Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Sigmodontinae-stub