noun
definition
A subdivision of a genus.
Examples of subgenus in a Sentence
Next we have the living African species, representing the subgenus Diceros, in which there are two horns but no front teeth.
The Peruvian species, Branchiostoma elongatum, with nearly eighty myotomes, cannot at present be assigned to its proper subgenus.
Other east African monkeys with a similar type of colouring, which, together with the wholly black west African C. satanas, collectively constitute the subgenus Guereza, may be included under the same title; and the name may be further extended to embrace all the African thumbless monkeys of the genus Colobus.
The members of the subgenus Guereza present a transition from a wholly black animal (C. satanas) to one (C. caudatus) in which the sides of the face are white, and the whole flanks, as well as the tail, clothed with a long fringe of pure white hairs.
From the North American grey foxes, constituting the genus or subgenus Urocyon, the true foxes are distinguished by the absence of a crest of erectile long hairs along the middle line of the upper surface of the tail, and also of a projection (subangular process) to the postero-inferior angle of the lower jaw.
The American grey fox, or Virginian fox, is now generally ranged as a distinct genus (or a subgenus of Canis) under the name of Urocyon cinereo-argentatus, on account of being distinguished, as already mentioned, by the presence of a ridge of long erectile hairs along the upper surface of the tail and of a projection to the postero-inferior angle of the lower jaw.
Together with C. neglectus of East and Central Africa, C. ignites of Liberia, and C. roloway of the Gold Coast, the diana represents the special subgenus of guenons known as Pogonocebus.
Together with the drill (q.v.), the mandrill, Papio maimon, constitutes the subgenus Maimon, which is exclusively West African in distribution, and characterized, among other peculiarities, by the extreme shortness of the tail, and the great development of the longitudinal bony swellings, covered during life with naked skin, on the sides of the muzzle.
White-tailed Group, Subgenus Dorcelaphus or Odocoileus.- Antlers large and complex, with a sub-basal snag, and the lower prong more or less developed at the expense of the upper one; metatarsal gland usually present; tail long or moderate, and hairy below; face very long and narrow; the face-gland small, and the gland-pit in the skull of moderate extent; no upper canines; size generally large.
The second group of the genus Cervus, forming the subgenus Pseudaxis, is typified by the handsome little Japanese deer, or sika, C. (P.) sica, in which the antlers are four-tined, and covered with red "velvet" when first grown, while the coat is fully spotted in summer, but more or less uniformly brown in winter.
Nearly allied to the preceding is the barasingha or rucervine group (subgenus Rucervus), in which the antlers are of a different and generally more complex character.
Including all these deer except one in the genus Mazama (of which the typical representatives are the South American brockets), the North American species constitute the subgenus Dorcelaphus (also known as Cariacus and Odocoileus).
The Chilian and Peruvian Andes and Patagonia are the homes of two peculiar deer locally known as guemals (huemals), and constituting the subgenus Xenelaphus, or Hippocamelus.
Displaying great variability in the length of the tail, which is reduced to a mere tubercle in the Barbary ape, alone representing the subgenus Inuus, macaques are heavily-built monkeys, with longer muzzles than their compatriots the langurs (see PRIMATES), and large naked callosities on the buttocks.
The above-mentioned anubis baboon, P. anubis (with the subspecies neumanni, pruinosus, heuglini and doguera), ranging from Egypt all through tropical Africa, together with P. sphinx, P. olivaceus, the Abyssinian P. lydekkeri, and the chacma, P. porcarius of the Cape, represent the subgenus Choeropithecus.
The named Arabian baboon, P. hamadryas of North Africa and Arabia, dedicated by the ancient Egyptians to the god Thoth, and the South Arabian P. arabicus, typify Hamadryas; while the drill and mandrill of the west coast, P. leucophaeus and P. maimon, constitute the subgenus Maimon.