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Discovery of the world’s highest-dwelling mammal

View ORCID ProfileJay F. Storz, View ORCID ProfileMarcial Quiroga-Carmona, View ORCID ProfileJuan C. Opazo, View ORCID ProfileThomas Bowen, View ORCID ProfileMatthew Farson, Scott J. Steppan, View ORCID ProfileGuillermo D’Elía
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.13.989822
Jay F. Storz
1School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, United States
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  • For correspondence: jstorz2@unl.edu
Marcial Quiroga-Carmona
2Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y Evolutivas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile
5Modoc Medical Center, Alturas, United States
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Juan C. Opazo
2Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y Evolutivas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile
3Millennium Nucleus of Ion Channels-Associated Diseases (MiNICAD)
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Thomas Bowen
4Department of Anthropology, California State University – Fresno, Fresno, United States
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Matthew Farson
5Modoc Medical Center, Alturas, United States
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Scott J. Steppan
6Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, United States
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Guillermo D’Elía
2Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y Evolutivas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile
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Abstract

Environmental limits of animal life are invariably revised upwards when the animals themselves are investigated in their natural habitats. Here we report results of a scientific mountaineering expedition to survey the high-altitude rodent fauna of Volcán Llullaillaco in the Puna de Atacama of northern Chile, an effort motivated by video documentation of mice (genus Phyllotis) at a record altitude of 6205 m. Among numerous trapping records at altitudes >5000 m, we captured a specimen of the yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis xanthopygus rupestris) on the very summit of Llullaillaco at 6739 m. This summit specimen represents an altitudinal world record for mammals, far surpassing all specimen-based records from the Himalayas and elsewhere in the Andes. This discovery suggests that we may have generally underestimated the altitudinal range limits and physiological tolerances of small mammals simply because the world’s highest summits remain relatively unexplored by biologists.

Footnotes

  • ↵* e-mail: jstorz2{at}unl.edu (JFS); guille.delia{at}gmail.com (GD)

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license.
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Posted March 14, 2020.
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Discovery of the world’s highest-dwelling mammal
Jay F. Storz, Marcial Quiroga-Carmona, Juan C. Opazo, Thomas Bowen, Matthew Farson, Scott J. Steppan, Guillermo D’Elía
bioRxiv 2020.03.13.989822; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.13.989822
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Discovery of the world’s highest-dwelling mammal
Jay F. Storz, Marcial Quiroga-Carmona, Juan C. Opazo, Thomas Bowen, Matthew Farson, Scott J. Steppan, Guillermo D’Elía
bioRxiv 2020.03.13.989822; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.13.989822

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