R. leucodactylus section sensu Tribe (1996). Includes scandens Goldman, previously recognized as a species (e.g., Handley, 1966a; Musser and Carleton, 1993) but which Tribe (1996) placed in full synonymy under R. l. latimanus. Cabrera (1961) also considered fulviventer and venustus as subspecies of R. latimanus, but these two forms are clearly distinct from the latimanus-venezuelae complex in northern South America (Handley, 1976; Tribe, 1996). Karyotype reported by Gardner and Patton (1976).

Handley (1976) suggested that Andean populations in E Colombia and N Venezuela, which he identified as R. venezuelae, may form the eastern component of R. latimanus, and Tribe (1996) formally arranged the former as a subspecies of the latter. Tribe’s morphometric analyses, however, disclose appreciable differentiation between the taxa; his results, and the biogeographic complexity documented for other groups distributed over these same Andean ranges, persuade us to provisionally retain the two as separate species. While undoubtedly closely related, the issue of their synonymy merits unambiguous verification with other data.