A propaedeutic to the taxonomy of the Eastern cottontail rabbit (Lagomorpha: Leporidae: Sylvilagus floridanus) from Central America
Bibliographic record
Abstract
To ascertain the taxonomic identity of cottontail rabbits from Costa Rica, we examined the holotypes of all the taxa of Sylvilagus currently subsumed within the Sylvilagus floridanus species complex as defined by Philip Hershkovitz. The almost 40 named taxa contained in S . floridanus are widespread from northeastern to north-central North America in the north (including southern Canada), through Central America to northwestern South America. Here, we examine Mesoamerican taxa in the complex, on the basis of holotypes, and test the hypothesis of conspecificity among them. Our examination of the holotypes, along with uni- and multivariate assessments of mensural variation as well as character variation in existing and newly acquired specimens from Costa Rica, indicate that S . floridanus (J. A. Allen, 1890) sensu stricto is restricted to North America, with its southern limit at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Sylvilagus yucatanicus (Miller, 1899) is limited to the Yucatan Peninsula. Sylvilagus hondurensis Goldman, 1932 is retained as a species, with S . h . costaricensis Harris, 1933 as a junior synonym. Costa Rica is revealed to have three described species: S . gabbi (J. A. Allen, 1877), S . hondurensis costaricensis , and S . dicei Harris, 1932. However, there are indications that this taxonomic scheme may in fact underrepresent the existing number of biological species of Sylvilagus present in that country.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".