Giant hutia

The giant hutias are an extinct group of large rodents known from fossil and subfossil material in the West Indies. One species, Amblyrhiza inundata, is estimated to have weighed between 50 and 200 kg (110 and 440 lb), big specimens being as large as an American black bear. This is twice as large as the capybara, the largest rodent living today, but still much smaller than Josephoartigasia monesi, the largest rodent known. These animals were probably used as a food source by aboriginal humans. All giant hutias are in a single family, Heptaxodontidae, which contains no living species; this grouping seems to be paraphyletic and arbitrary, however.

Giant hutias
Temporal range: Miocene–Pleistocene
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Suborder: Hystricomorpha
Infraorder: Hystricognathi
Parvorder: Caviomorpha
Superfamily: Octodontoidea
Family: †Heptaxodontidae
Anthony, 1917
Genera

†Amblyrhiza
†Clidomys
†Elasmodontomys
†Quemisia
†Xaymaca

One of the smaller species, Quemisia, may have survived as late as when the Spanish began to colonize the Caribbean.[1]

Some of their smaller relatives from the family Capromyidae, known as hutias, survive in the Caribbean Islands.

Taxonomy

The giant hutias are divided into two subfamilies, five genera, and six species.

See also

References
  1. Day, David (1989). Vanished Species. New York: Gallery Books. p. 236. ISBN 9780831727826.

Bibliography
  • Biknevicius, A. R.; McFarlane, Donald A. & MacPhee, R. D. E. (1993): Body size in Amblyrhiza inundata (Rodentia: Caviomorpha), an extinct megafaunal rodent from the Anguilla Bank, West Indies: estimates and implications. American Museum Novitates 3079: 1-26. PDF fulltext
  • MacPhee, R. D. E. & Flemming, C. (2003): A possible heptaxodontine and other caviidan rodents from the Quaternary of Jamaica. American Museum Novitates 3422: 1-42. PDF fulltext
  • Nowak, Ronald M. 1999. Walker's Mammals of the World, 6th edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1936 ISBN 0-8018-5789-9
  • Woods, C. A. 1989. Biogeography of West Indian rodents. Pages 741–797 in Biogeography of the West Indies: Past Present and Future. Sandhill Crane Press, Gainesville.
  • Woods, C.A.; Paéz, R.C.; Kilpatrick, C.W. (2001). "Insular Patterns and Radiations of West Indian Rodents". In Woods, C.A.; Sergile, F.E. (eds.). Biogeography of the West Indies: Patterns and Perspectives. Boca Raton, London, New York, and Washington, D.C.: CRC Press. pp. 335–354. doi:10.1201/9781420039481-18. ISBN 978-0-8493-2001-9.
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