The description of
Mesomys hispidus was conducted on a specimen collected by the naturalist
Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira during his travels in Amazonian Brazil, hence the species name. Initially deposited in the Museu Real d'Ajuda of Portugal, it has been brought to Paris in 1808 after the plundering of
Lisbon by the armies of
Napoleon. Then, in 1817,
Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest described the species based on this specimen housed in the
National Museum of Natural History (France) of Paris. Using
ancient DNA technology, a portion of the
mitochondrial cytochrome b gene has been sequenced from a small skin fragment of this
holotype. DNA sequence comparisons then suggested that the specimen was originally obtained in eastern Amazonia north of the
Amazon River, most likely in the Brazilian state of
Amapá. ==References==