New southern most records of Eligmodontia puerulus (Rodentia: Cricetidae) in Northern Chile: implications for its biogeography and conservation

Abstract

Eligmodontia puerulus is well-adapted to desert ecosystems. It is restricted to the puna or "altiplano" region, which comprised southern Peru, northeastern Chile, west-central Bolivia and northwestern Argentina. In Chile its known distribution reaches it southern limit at the north of Atacama Salt. Between September 2006 and March 2010 we captured 100 individuals using Sherman traps and determined 37 individuals based on dental remains of E. puerulus inside Lycalopex culpaeus faeces, in seven different localities between the Salar de Atacama, in the Antofagasta Region, and Quebrada Villalobos, in the Atacama Region. These records increase the species distribution in 490 km at the south of its known distribution range, and also support the potential distribution for Chile proposed by Lazone and Ojeda (2005), whose postulate a continuous distribution in all the puna region.