L. Forró szerk.: Miscellanea Zoologica Hungarica 7. 1992 (Budapest, 1992)

Borroto Páez, R., Camacho Pérez, A.; Ramos García, I.: Variation in three populations of Capromys pilorides (Rodentia: Capromyidae), and the description of a new subspecies from the south of the Isle of Youth (Cuba)

The southern form is also statistically different from C. p. relictus in that it has the lowest values for neurocranial height and the width of choana while it has intermediate values regarding minimal distance between the temporal lines and the length of palatinum. In general, the southern form is the largest in many quantitative characters. A résumé of the measurements of the 56 cranial character we analyzed shows that half (28) of these are significantly different among some of the three populations; 14 (24.6%) are significantly different between C. p. relictus and the southern form; 22 (38.6%) between the southern form and C. p. pilorides, and 10 (17.5%) between C. p. relictus and C. p. pilorides. This gives an idea of the real differences existing between the southern form and C p. pilorides of the Isle of Cuba, and the northern Isla of Youth subspecies C. p. relictus. When referring to indices, only three of these show significant differences. In the case of HDP/HDO, significant differences are due to the absolute values of HDP, since HDO values were very similar among the three forms. However, in case of the COND/Z index, while neither absolute values are significantly different, the quotient is, since in C. p. relictus condylobasal length is large, while zygomatic width in low. The "area" of the foramen magnum (HV) is large in the southern form, which separates it from the two other subspecies, and is thus one of its distinctive characters. In Fig. la a dendrogram of the three populations based on external morphometric characters and Crovello's index of taxonomic distance is shown. C. p. pilorides with C. p. relictus is a separate group, different from the southern form. A similar dendrogram was obtained with craniometric character (Fig. lb). The same results, not shown here, were arrived at when relative values were used. a) I Capromys pilorides pilorides Capromys pilorides relictus southern form I I I I I 1764.0 1379.1 994.1 609.2 224.3 Capromys pilorides pilorides Capromys pilorides relictus southern form I , I I I I 79.0 74.0 69.0 64.0 59.0 CROVELLO'S TAXONOMIC DISTANCE Fig. 1. Dendrograms of three populations of the conga hutia based on external morphological (a) and cranial characters (b) A rather different picture emerged when the populations were clustered based on qualitative character and a correlation matrix (Fig. 2). The southern form is closest to C. p. pilorides, and removed from C. p. relictus.