Description

COMMENTS: Bechthold (1939), followed here, included hosei and fusca, and listed characteristics suggesting that in some respects, semitorquatus was intermediate between brachyurus and urva; this was followed by Medway (1977). Bechthold (1939) believed that / usc « (sensu stricto) is most closely related to far-eastern brachyurus forms and considered them conspecific (both forms are short tailed mongooses); however, he gave features of the skull and pelage (used elsewhere at the specific level, i. e., edwardsii vs. javanicus) that distinguished the S India / Sri Lankan populations from those of SE Asia. Here they are provisionally treated as allopatric subspecies. Schwarz (1947) believed semitorcjuatus to be a red color morph of the dark brachyurus, although he did not address the most distinguishing feature of the collared mongoose - the collar - present in semitorquatus and absent in brachyurus. Medway (1977), followed by Payne et al. (1985), recognized hosei based on differences in the shape of the coronoid process of the mandible.

Common Names

Taxonomic Hierarchy

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Family: Herpestidae

Genus: Herpestes

Species: Herpestes brachyurus Gray, 1837