The Red-crested Tree Rat, also called the Red Crested Soft-furred Spiny-rat (Santamartamys rufodorsalis) is a unique monotypic genus of rodent

Rodent

Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....

 in the Echimyidae family. Originally described as Isothrix

Isothrix

The toros or brush-tailed rats, genus Isothrix, are a group of spiny rats found in tropical South America, particularly in the Amazon Basin.-Description:...

 rufodorsalis in 1899, it was placed in the genus Diplomys

Diplomys

Diplomys is a genus of rodent in the Echimyidae family. They are found in Ecuador, Colombia and Panama.It contains the following species:* Arboreal Soft-furred Spiny Rat * Rufous Tree Rat...

in 1935. The subfamily Echimyinae (including this species) was reviewed in 2005, and as a result it is now placed in the monotypic

Monotypic

In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...

 genus Santamartamys. It was only known from two specimen

Specimen

A specimen is a portion/quantity of material for use in testing, examination, or study.BiologyA laboratory specimen is an individual animal, part of an animal, a plant, part of a plant, or a microorganism, used as a representative to study the properties of the whole population of that species or...

s collected in 1898 from the Santa Marta Mountains in Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

 until 2011 when one of the elusive red-crested tree rats ambled up to two biologists in the field. It has been suggested as occurring in humid montane forest, but its habitat preference – as well as all of its life history

Biological life cycle

A life cycle is a period involving all different generations of a species succeeding each other through means of reproduction, whether through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction...

 – is completely unknown. It is largely rufous

Rufous

Rufous is a colour that may be described as reddish-brown or brownish-red, as of rust or oxidised iron.The first recorded use of rufous as a colour name in English was in the year 1782....

above, with a hairy black (basal) and white tail.