Voalavo is a genus of rodent in the subfamily Nesomyinae, found only in Madagascar. The genus was discovered in 1994 and formally described in 1998. Two species are known, both of which occur in mountain forest above 1250 m altitude.
About Voalavo in brief
Voalavo is a genus of rodent in the subfamily Nesomyinae, found only in Madagascar. Two species are known, both of which occur in mountain forest above 1250 m altitude. They are small, gray, mouse-like rodents, among the smallest nesomyines. They lack the distinctive tuft of long hairs on the tail that is characteristic of Eliurus. The genus was discovered in 1994 and formally described in 1998. It is most closely related to the genus Eliurus, and DNA sequence data suggest that the current definitions of these two genera need to be changed. In terms of external morphology, the genus is barely different from Eliurus; fur coloration, number of mammae, and number of feet are all the same in both genera.
The tail is long and females have six mammase. There are two glands on the chest that produce a sweet-smelling musk in breeding males. The incisive foramina are long and the bony palate itself is smooth. The molars are somewhat hypsodont, though less so than in Eliurus and the third m teeth are reduced in size and complexity. The head and body is longer than the head and length of the tail in northern voalvo is comparable to that of the longest-tailed species of Grandidier’s tufted-tailed rat, and the latter does have a pronounced tufts of elongated hairs at the tip of its tail, although the latter is absent in Voalavos. The generic name Voalvos is a Malagasy word for \”rodent\”.
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This page is based on the article Voalavo published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 07, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
