PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 111(1):1-14. 1998. The taxonomic status of the Yucatan brown brocket, Mazama pandora (Mammalia: Cervidae) Rodrigo A. Medellm, Alfred L. Gardner, and J. Marcelo Aranda (RAM) Instituto de Ecologia, UNAM, Apartado Postal 70-275, 04510 Distrito Federal, Mexico; (ALG) Biological Survey, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Biological Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. 20560-0111, U.S.A.; (JMA) Instituto de Ecologia, A.C., Km 2.5 Antigua Carretera a Coatepec, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico Abstract. — The Yucatan brown brocket deer, described as Mazama pandora, is now treated as a subspecies of either the common brown brocket Mazama gouazoubira, or of the red brocket M. americana. Analysis of brocket deer from Mexico and Central and South America, reveals that the Yucatan brown brocket is sympatric with the red brocket in Mexico and, while similar to M. gouazoubira, warrants recognition as a separate species. Merriam (1901) described a brown brocket from the Yucatan Peninsula as Ma-zama pandora. Allen (1915) retained M. pandora as a species and aligned it with the brown brocket group. Gaumer (1917) treat-ed M. pandora as a synonym of Cariacus rufinus (Bourcier & Pucheran 1852), vari-ously considered either a red or a brown brocket. Tate (1939:226), believing that red brockets (his Division A [large brockets]) occurred only in South America, allied M. pandora with his Division B (small brock-ets) in which he included both "red" and "brown" species. Goldman & Moore (1945) listed pandora as a subspecies of the Mexican red brocket M. sartorii Saussure, 1860 (=M. americana), a taxon Tate (1939) had questionably equated with M. tema Raf-inesque, 1817, (=M. americana) and in-cluded in his Division B group. Hershko-vitz (1951) listed pandora as a subspecies of the common South American brown brocket M. gouazoubira (Fischer 1814). Miller & Kellogg (1955) and Hall & Kelson (1959) followed Hershkovitz's allocation and used the name combination M. goua-zoubira pandora. Later, Hershkovitz (1966: 743, footnote) changed his mind and, hav-ing decided that the Yucatan brown brocket was a color variant of the red brocket, said it "should be known as Mazama americana pandora." Genoways & Jones (1975) agreed, as did Hall (1981), Ramirez P. et al. (1986), and Grubb (1993). Czernay (1987) and Bisbal (1991), however, disagreed and treated pandora as an disjunct subspecies of M. gouazoubira. As currently understood (Grubb 1993), Mazama is represented in Mexico by a sin-gle species, the red brocket M. americana (Erxleben 1777), found in the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatan, Chia-pas, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, and San Luis Potosi (Hall 1981, Ramirez P. et al. 1986, Grubb 1993). Hall (1981) recognized three subspecies in Mexico: M. a. pandora in the northern Yucatan Peninsula, M. a. cerasina Hollister, 1914, in easternmost Chiapas (but did not cite a record), and M. a. temama Kerr, 1792, elsewhere in the country. Mazama americana also occurs southward through Central and South America to Argentina (Cabrera 1961, Ei-senberg 1989, Emmons & Feer 1990, Red-ford & Eisenberg 1992). The only other brocket currently known north of South America is M. guoazoubira permira Kel-logg, 1946, a brown brocket endemic to Isla
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