Roosmalen's dwarf porcupine (''Coendou roosmalenorum'') is a

porcupine Porcupines are large rodents with coats of sharp Spine (zoology), spines, or quills, that protect them against predation. The term covers two Family (biology), families of animals: the Old World porcupines of the family Hystricidae, and the New ...

species from the

New World porcupine The New World porcupines, family Erethizontidae, are large arboreal rodents, distinguished by their Spine (zoology), spiny coverings from which they take their name. They inhabit forests and wooded regions across North America, and into northern ...

family likely endemic to northern

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. Only three specimens were known at the time, and only one had a collection locality. It is named for

Marc van Roosmalen Marc van Roosmalen (born 23 June 1947) is a Dutch-Brazilian primatologist. He was elected as one of the "Heroes for the Planet" by ''Time'' magazine in 2000. His research has led to the identification of several new monkey species, as well as o ...

and his son Tomas, whose collections from the middle

Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...

included the first known specimens. It was soon assigned to the genus ''Sphiggurus'', although this genus was not recognized by the authors. Genetic studies in 2013 have since showed ''Sphiggurus'' to be

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage that includes organisms with mixed evolutionary origin but does not include their most recent common ancestor. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as Homoplasy, homoplasies ...

(this taxon was omitted from the study). Nonetheless it is commonly classified as ''Sphiggurus roosmalenorum''. ''Coendou roosmalenorum'' may be misspelled due to a conflicting

basionym In the scientific name of organisms, basionym or basyonym means the original name on which a new name is based; the author citation of the new name should include the authors of the basionym in parentheses. The term "basionym" is used in both botan ...

combination.

References

Natureserve.org
Coendou Endemic mammals of Brazil Mammals described in 2001 Taxa named by Maria Nazareth Ferreira da Silva {{rodent-stub