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Range DescriptionKnown from a small sample of specimens in museums, this species was formerly included within the little dwarf brocket, Mazama rufina (Redford and Eisenberg 1992). For Redford and Eisenberg (1992) and Eisenberg and Redford (1999) this species occurs in southeast Paraguay, north of Misiones Province in Argentina, and in the Brazilian states of Minas Gerais (extreme south), SÃ£o Paulo (except Serra do Mar), Mato Grosso do Sul (south and southeast), ParanÃ¡, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul (north). However, this distribution is not consistent with the origin of scarce material in the Brazilian scientific collections that restrict its distribution to the southwest of Sao Paulo (to the south of Paranapanema River), Parana, Santa Catarina and north of Rio Grande do Sul (Rossi 2000).
The loss of preferential habitats could have caused the occupation of forest formations less preferred by the species. This would explain the recent records in the east of Parana and Santa Catarina (Montane Forest and Submontane Ombrophilous Dense Forest) (Margarido and Braga 2004, J.M.B. Duarte pers. comm.) and the absence of historical records in these regions (Rossi 2000).
The National Museum of Natural History of Paraguay has records of M. nana in San Rafael National Park region (Gamarra de Fox and Martin 1996) and in Argentina, the species may be found in almost all the remaining natural forests of Misiones Province (D.M. Varella pers. comm.).