The brown-tailed mongoose was first described in 1837 by French zoologist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire under the names Galidia unicolor and Galidia olivacea. He placed both in the genusGalidia, together with the ring-tailed mongoose (Galidia elegans),[3] which is now recognized as the only species of that genus.[4] However, the name unicolor had been a misprint for concolor, and the name was corrected in an erratum and in a later note by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.[5] In 1865,[Note 1]John Edward Gray placed concolor and olivacea in their own subgenusofGalidia, which he called Salanoia.[7] In 1882, St. George Jackson Mivart also separated olivacea and concolor from Galidia, and placed them in a separate genus Hemigalidia, without mentioning Salanoia.[8] In his 1904 Index generum mammalium, Palmer noted that Salanoia, the first name to be published, was the proper name for the genus.[9] Although Glover Morrill Allen, in 1939, still listed two species, which he called Salanoia olivacea and S. unicolor,[10] by 1972 R. Albignac recognized a single species only, which he called Salanoia concolor.[11] A second species of Salanoia, Salanoia durrelli, was described in 2010.[12]
Albignac, R. 1972. The Carnivora of Madagascar. Pp. 667–682 in Battistini, R. & Richard-Vindard, G. (eds.). Biogeography and Ecology in Madagascar. The Hague: W. Junk B.B., Publishers.
Allen, G.M. 1939. A checklist of African mammals. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 83:1–763.
Durbin, Joanna; Funk, Stephan M.; Hawkins, Frank; Hills, Daphne M.; Jenkins, Paulina D.; Moncrieff, Clive B.; Ralainasolo, Fidimalala Bruno (2010). "Investigations into the status of a new taxon of Salanoia(Mammalia: Carnivora: Eupleridae) from the marshes of Lac Alaotra, Madagascar". Systematics and Biodiversity. 8 (3): 341–355. doi:10.1080/14772001003756751. S2CID84480153.
Wozencraft, W.C. 2005. Order Carnivora. Pp. 532–628 in Wilson, D.E. & Reeder, D.M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: a taxonomic and geographic reference. 3rd ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols., 2142 pp. ISBN978-0-8018-8221-0
