p. 227-231 ; 24 cm.Includes bibliographical references

Elliot, Daniel Giraud, 1835-1915.

American Museum of Natural History Scientific Publications

59.9, 88Article XV.- DESCRIPTIONS OF APPARENTLY A NEW SPE-CIES AND SUBSPECIES OF CEBUS, WITH REMARKS ONTHE NOMENCLATURE OF LINN1EUS'S SIMIA APELLAAND SIMIA CAPUCINA.By D. G. ELLIOT, D. Sc., F. R. S.Before describing the apparently new forms, it will be advisable toconsider the nomenclature of the two Linnaean species above named.From the time when Humboldt described his species Simia hypoleuca(Recueil d'Observations de Zoologie et d'Anatomie Compar6es, I, 1811, p.337), great confusion has existed, both in the names and actual recognitionof the species called by Linnaeus S. apella and S. capucina. With manywriters the first name has been ignored entirely, and Humboldt's name ofhypoleucus has been universally applied to the black monkey with the fore-head, sides of head, throat, chest, shoulders and forearms white, and rangingfrom Nicaragua through Central America, the islands in the Bay of Panama,and northern South America to Colombia. The name capucinus Linn.,on the other hand, has been applied to the brown monkey (the most gener-ally known of all the species), from northern South America, with thecrown, hands, feet, forearms, line from crown between eyes and ears meetingunder the chin, and tail black; underparts yellowish sometimes with agolden tinge. The species, however, is subject to an extreme individualvariation, and, in consequence of this, has received many names fromvarious writers.Before proceeding further, it will be desirable to ascertain what reallywas the style of the animals on which Linnaeus bestowed the names apellaand capucina. These first appeared in his work entitled 'Museum RegisAdolphi Friderici,' published at Stockholm in 1754. Descriptions and platesare given of the two species in Latin and Swedish. The first mentioned is"Simia apella" with this diagnosis: "Simia imberbis, cauda prehensili,pedibus nigris, corpore fusco." The more extended description is asfollows:"Viva asservatur itidem in Museo. Corpus magnitudine Felis, colorefuscum, s. e. griseo nigricans uti Martes; at Pedes, & Cauda nigra. Caputsupra nigrum, nigredine ad angulum frontis extensa. Facies incarnato-fusca, a superciliis ad mentum usque nuda. Supra supercilia facies quasirasa pilis nuper renatis. Sub mento vellus breve, densum, atrum, pingue,227Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXVI,Aures rotundatae, parvwe. Cauda longitudine corporis, basin versus crassior,pilis brevibus vestita, semper incurva, qua dum scandit, prehendit animal."The plate shows an uncolored figure of a monkey, with the distribution ofcolors indicated in black and white, answering to the above description, andis the species called by authors generally Cebus capucinus Linnseus. Thenin the same work follows"Simia capucina," with this diagnosis: "Simia imberbis nigra, caudalonga hirsuta, facie flavescente," followed beneath by the description:"Viva itidem in Museo occurrit. Corpus magnitudine cati, atrum pilolaxo longiusculo; at Facies & maxima pars capitis, excepto pileo nigro,pallide flava est una cum pectore ad flexuram usque cubitorum. Faciesnuda est, parva & incarnata. Oculi nigri. Nares simse, protuberantesquasi duobus tuberibus, hiantibus & patulis-foraminibus, hinc fere befidae,obtusissimpe; Basis narium inter oculos carinata est. Aures rotundaepilosse. Cauda corpore longior, valde hirsuta, & propemodum lanata,incurva, quam sTepius ante pectus vel supra scapulos inflectit." The figurein the plate exhibits a black monkey with 4 white head, except a black crownas stated above, white chest and forearms, shoulders and upper arms; atypical hypoleucus Humboldt.By no possible interpretation of the above description and plate can thename capucinus Linn. be transferred from this black and white capuchinto the brown species called by Linnaeus apella. Nor, indeed, would it havebeen probable that any confusion of names should have arisen, had it nothave been, in a measure, caused by Linnaeus himself, for in his 'SystemaNaturve,' 10th ed., 1758 (the one now generally agreed upon as the startingpoint for binomial nomenclature), in the diagnosis of capucinus he omits theword nigra after "S. caudata imberbis." But in the 12th ed., 1766, the onequoted to-day by many European naturalists as the beginning of the Lin-naean nomenclature, Linnaeus, as was not infrequently his habit, alters hisoriginal description of capucinus and makes his diagnosis read, "S. caudatafuscus" instead of nigra, and on the next page in his description gives "'corpusfuscum, pedes, caudaque nigra, Pectus ferrugineum," which describesneither his capucinus nor apella as first given. In the edition of 1758, theonly reference given to both species is the work "Museum Regis AdolphiFriderici," and in 1766 it is the only one for apella and the first one forcapucinus, the other being Brisson's Cercopithecus fuscus capite verticenigro, which is probably apella (nec capucinus) Linn. Here then is thecommencement of the confusion existing for so long between the two speciesof Linnaeus, for his capucinus of the 12th edition is not the capucinus of the10th edition nor of the Mus. Reg. Adolp. Frider. No habitat was given atfirst for either species, but in the 10th edition apella is stated to come from228Elliot, New Species and Subspecies of Cebus.'America' and capucinus is still without a habitat; but in the 12th editioncapucinm comes from Surinam, the other from 'America,' while the de-scription of capucinus is a jumble of the two species, with a leaning towardsapella. The confusion thus created by Linnseus himself has been noticedby previous authors, and some have increased it, like Dahlbom, who whilecorrectly giving the name capucinus to the hypoleucus Humboldt, renamedthe species from Guiana pucherani. Schlegel, in the Mus. Hist. Nat. Pays-Bas, Simiae, in discussing the condition existing, p. 192, refuses to acceptcapucinus for the black and white monkey because Linnaeus in his descrip-tion gives 'corpus atrum,' which he says means "sombre, obscure, t6n6breux"contrary to 'nigrum' which Linnaeus employed to designate the cap on thehead, and therefore he considers 'atrum' does not describe hypoleucuswhich has the body uniformly black. In this argument he ignores entirelyLinneus's original diagnosis of capucinus, which states "Simia imberbisnigra," and goes quite contrary to the Dictionaries, which define 'ater' as'black,' 'coal-black'! Linnaus evidently uses niger and ater as synony-mous, both defining the color of the body of capucinus as black, which it is.It will therefore be seen that Linnaeus's capucinus, as originally described,was a black and white or yellowish white animal with a pale face, and not abrown monkey with a fuscous face (incarnato-fusca), and the name can onlyproperly be applied to the species afterwards called hypoleuca by Humboldt,to which authors generally have erroneously given the name of capucinus(nec Linnaeus).We now come to the new allied form of C. capucinus (Linn.).Cebus capucinas nigripectus subsp. nov.Type locality. Las Pubas, Cauca Valley, Colombia. "Not found in lowlands"(Coll.).Type, No. 14180, collection Amer. Mus. Nat. History, New York.Color.- Sides of head and neck, chin, throat, shoulders and outer side of upperarms yellowish white; forehead bistre; top of head, back of neck, chest, body aboveand beneath, lower arms, legs, hands, feet and tail jet black.Skull, compared with one of C. capucinus from Pozo Azul, Costa Rica, exhibits thefollowing differences:- It is that of a young adult with the teeth but little worn,and part of palate, pterygoid and occipital region gone. The braincase is longerand 5 mm. less in the widest part, over the root of the zygoma; but is 16 mm. widerat the constriction behind orbits, which causes the sides of the braincase to be morenearly parallel; the orbits are smaller; the nasals much narrower; the palate (middleportion posteriorly from pm2 gone) narrower, and contracting anteriorly; molarseries much smaller, the last molar being about half the size of the middle molar,and appearing quite minute when compared with the other teeth in the series. Man-dible has the ascending ramus much narrower, with a smaller and less wide angle;jaw at symphysis much narrower and not so deep. The mandible in fact is lighter,1909.] 229Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXVI,generally smaller and shorter. There is not so much difference in the size of thelower molar series as there is in the upper, but the last molar is the smallest in theseries, and smaller than the corresponding tooth in the Costa Rican C. capucinus.Measurements.- Total length as given by the collector J. H. Batty, 835 mm.;tail, 430; hindfoot, 122; ear, 30. Skull, occipito-nasal length, 89; zygomatic width,53.8; width of braincase above root of zygoma, 52; length of braincase from marginbetween orbits, 75; Hensel, about 68.5; skull broken; length of upper molar series,32; width of last molar, 3.5; length of mandible on lower margin, 44.9; width atsymphysis, 13.7; height of ascending ramus, 28.5; length of molar series, 25.9.While resembling the typical C. capacinus (Linn.) in its general ap-pearance it differs from that species in the color of the forehead which isbistre and not white nor yellowish white, and also in the white of the throatnot extending on to the chest, which with the entire under parts is jet blacklike the other portions of the body. These differences with those given ofthe skull and particularly of the upper molars would seem to entitle thiswestern form from the Cauca Valley to be ranked as a subspecies.Three specimens were obtained, two young adults and one younger, allfemales. They are alike, the forehead of the youngest examples not beingso dark as those of the adults. The collector remarks on the label, "Notfound in lowlands, mountain species; sagacious, a shy animal, and expertjumper."Cebus malitiosus sp. nov.Cebus capucinus (nec Linn.) ALLEN, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 1904, p. 467.Type locality: Vicinity of Bonda, Colombia, South America.Type, No. 14620, collection American Museum of Natural History, New York.Gent. char.- Mummy brown; shoulders yellow.Color, Male.- Top of head, back of neck, entire upper parts, arms, includingelbows and inner side of forearm and legs, mummy brown, tip of hairs paler, in somelights on the body of a golden hue; the crown is somewhat darker than the back;forehead wood brown; space around eyes naked, flesh color; end of nose and lipsdark brown, the lips sparsely covered with short white hairs; face flesh color; sidesof head, shoulders, forearms on outer side nearly to the elbow, straw yellow; bodybeneath and inner side of limbs similar to body above but paler; basal half of tailabove mummy brown, apical half very dark wood brown; beneath buff color; handsand feet mummy brown; ears flesh color covered with straw yellow hairs.Measurements.- Skin: Total length, 890 mm. (2 ft. 11 in.); tail, 433, (17+ in.);foot, 113 (4J in.). Skull: occipito-nasal length, 98.2; Hensel, 77.5; postorbitalconstriction, 44; greatest width of braincase, 54.5; total length of skull, 102.3;zygomatic width, 70; palatal length, 35; length of nasals, 22.2; width of orbits,47; length of molar series, 22.1; length of canines, 28.8; length of mandible, 60;height of ascending ramus, 34.6; width at alveolar border, 39.1; length of lowermolar series, 37.7; length of canines, 26.6.The above coloration is what seems to be the typical style, but there is230Elliot, New Species and Subspecies of Cebus.very great individual variation in the series present, some of the examplesbeing a dark prout's brown, in some lights appearing blackish. The colorof the tail varies greatly, and in some individuals the upper portion is mixedlight and dark brown giving a grizzled appearance, while others have thebasal half like the back, grading off to a wood brown on apical half. Thecolor of the sides of neck and shoulders varies in depth, from a yellowishwhite to a golden yellow. There is no difference in the disposition ofcolor between the sexes, nor in the brilliancy of tints, and such differencesas are sometimes shown cannot be deemed sexual, but purely individual,each one doing apparently what seemeth best in his own eyes; but the huesare restricted to the dark and light shades of brown and yellow.This species resembles none known to me. The coloring of the headrecalls somewhat that of C. albi.rons, but it has none of the red hue on thebody of that species, nor has C. albifrons the yellow shoulders of this newform. It belongs to the group without tufts on the head, and differs in sucha marked degree from all other species of that group with yellow on theshoulders or arms, that it is not necessary to compare them. The typebelongs to the series collected by Herbert H. Smith, in Colombia, and whichwere provisionally referred to C. capucinus by Dr. Allen in his paper on themammals from that State (1. c.).I am indebted to my friend Dr. Allen for the opportunity of describingthe new forms in this paper.1909.] 231

New species and subspecies of Cebus

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