''Heteromys'' is a genus of

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...

s in the family Heteromyidae, commonly known as spiny pocket mice. It is the only extant genus in the subfamily Heteromyinae which also includes the extinct genera '' Diprionomys'' and ''

Metaliomys ''Metaliomys'' is an extinct genus of Heteromyidae that existed in the United States during the Late Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages. The Tortonian and Messinian ...

''. ''Heteromys'' was recently enlarged by inclusion of the members of formerly recognized heteromyine genus ''Liomys'', which was found to be

paraphyletic In taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In ...

Distribution

Heteromyines are distributed from southern

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...

and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

, and include all but

one 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

of the castorimorph species of South America. Like all of South America's other non-

caviomorph Caviomorpha is the rodent infraorder or parvorder that unites all New World hystricognaths. It is supported by both fossil and molecular evidence. The Caviomorpha was for a time considered to be a separate order outside the Rodentia, but is ...

rodents, they arrived in the continent relatively recently as part of the

Great American Interchange The Great American Biotic Interchange (commonly abbreviated as GABI), also known as the Great American Interchange and the Great American Faunal Interchange, was an important late Cenozoic paleozoogeographic biotic interchange event in which lan ...

. They inhabit mainly forests; some are also found in scrubland.

Taxonomy

Salvin's spiny pocket mouse Salvin's spiny pocket mouse (''Heteromys salvini'') is a small to medium-sized rodent in the family Heteromyidae. It was formerly placed in the genus ''Liomys'', which is now recognized to be paraphyletic and has been subsumed into ''Heteromys''. ...

(''H. salvini'') * Jaliscan spiny pocket mouse (''H. spectabilis'') * Ecuadoran spiny pocket mouse (''H. teleus'')

References

Rodent genera Taxa named by Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest Mammals described in 1817 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Heteromyidae-stub