List of rodents of the Caribbean

The Caribbean region is home to a diverse and largely endemic rodent fauna. This includes the endemic family Capromyidae (hutias), which are largely limited to the Greater Antilles, and two other groups of endemic hystricognaths, the heteropsomyines and giant hutias, including the extinct bear-sized '' Amblyrhiza inundata''. Lesser Antillean rodent faunas mostly consist of oryzomyines, members of a distantly related group of rodents, and include two of the largest known oryzomyines, '' Megalomys desmarestii'' and "'' Oryzomys hypenemus''". Various other rodents are limited to land-bridge islands such as Trinidad, which were connected to the mainland during glacial-period lowered sea levels in the Pleistocene, or to smaller portions of the Caribbean archipelago. Much of the native rodent fauna of the Caribbean are extinct because of human influences, particularly following the introduction of invasive species such as Old World rats.

For the purposes of this article, the "Caribbean" includes all islands in the Caribbean Sea (except for small islets close to the mainland) and the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Barbados, which are not in the Caribbean Sea but biogeographically belong to the same Caribbean bioregion.

Overview

The Caribbean rodent fauna is dominated by oryzomyines (rice rats), members of the family Cricetidae, and by three groups of hystricognaths: hutias (family Capromyidae), giant hutias (taxonomy unclear), and heteropsomyines (subfamily Heteropsomyinae), which are part of the spiny rat family (Echimyidae). Many other rodent groups are known from the Caribbean, but these are either introduced or limited to islands outside the limits of the West Indian faunal region as defined by Koopman.

So far, no rodents have been recorded from Navassa Island, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Saint Barthélemy, Redonda, Saba, the federal dependencies of Venezuela, or the Insular Region of Colombia.

Oryzomyines are a diverse group, consisting of over a hundred species found from the eastern United States south to Tierra del Fuego, including also the Galápagos Islands. In the Caribbean, they are found on many islands close to the mainland, from the Florida Keys to Tobago, but also on Jamaica and throughout the Lesser Antilles north to Anguilla. Their invasion of the Lesser Antilles must have been relatively recent, as sigmodontine rodents only reached South America from North America about 5 million years ago. In the Lesser Antilles, most species have not been named or described, and the true diversity of the group in that region remains unclear. All endemic Caribbean oryzomyines are now extinct, though several island populations of mainland species survive.

Hutias are the most diverse endemic Caribbean hystricognath group and the only one that still survives, although many species are extinct. Most species are known from Cuba and Hispaniola, but hutias are also indigenous to Jamaica and some smaller islands and they have been introduced to several other parts of the Caribbean. The hutia family is divided into four subfamilies, of which one or two are now extinct.Woods and Kilpatrick, 2005 They have been present in the Caribbean for a considerable span of time, as documented by the find of a hutia, '' Zazamys'', in early Miocene sediments on Cuba. This represents more than half the age (~32 million years) of the earliest known hystricognath rodent in South America (a continent hystricognaths colonized by rafting across the Atlantic from their ancestral home in Africa).

Giant hutias are a heterogeneous group of hystricognaths that include not only truly giant forms like '' Amblyrhiza'', but also the small '' Xaymaca''. All are now extinct. Some have previously been included in a family Heptaxodontidae, but there is little evidence that the group is truly natural. Giant hutias are known from Jamaica ('' Clidomys'', ''Xaymaca'', and possibly another, very large form), Hispaniola ('' Quemisia''), Puerto Rico ('' Elasmodontomys'', '' Tainotherium''), and Anguilla and Saint Martin in the northern Lesser Antilles (''Amblyrhiza'').

Heteropsomyines form a distinct subfamily of the widespread Neotropic family of spiny rats, which is known only from Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico. On each island, a distinct genus with two species has been found, but all are now extinct. A fourth genus, '' Puertoricomys'', is known from an older, perhaps Pliocene