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Pacarana
The pacarana (''Dinomys branickii'') is a rare and slow-moving hystricognath rodent indigenous to South America. Native Tupi people call it the ''pacarana'' (false paca) because it is superficially similar to the paca, a different rodent which is not in the same family. The pacarana has a chunky body and is large for a rodent, weighing up to and measuring up to in length, not including the thick, furry tail. The pacarana is nocturnal and is found only in tropical forests of the western Amazon River basin and adjacent foothills of the Andes Mountains. It ranges from northwestern Venezuela and Colombia to western Bolivia, including the Yungas. It is common in Cotapata National Park in Bolivia. The pacarana is the sole extant member of the rodent family Dinomyidae in the infraorder Caviomorpha; the paca that it resembles in appearance is in a different Caviomorph family, the Cuniculidae. Initially, the pacarana was regarded as a member of the superfamily Muroidea, that include ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josephoartigasia Monesi
''Josephoartigasia'' is an extinct genus of enormous dinomyid rodent from the Early Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of Uruguay. The only living member of Dinomyidae is the pacarana. ''Josephoartigasia'' is named after Uruguayan national hero José Artigas. It contains two species: ''J. magna'', described in 1966 based on a left mandible, and ''J. monesi'', described in 2008 based on a practically complete skull. Both are reported from the San José Member of the Raigón Formation by the Barrancas de San Gregorio along the shores of Kiyú beach. The skull of ''J. monesi'' measures , similar to a beef cow skull, equating to a full body length of —though this is likely an overestimate—and a weight of about . This makes ''J. monesi'' the biggest rodent ever discovered. It was much larger than ''J. magna'' or the largest living rodent, the capybara, which averages . ''J. monesi'' also had a massive bite force of approximately at the incisors (on par with large carnivores) and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dinomyidae
The Dinomyidae are a family of South American hystricognath rodents: the dinomyids were once a very speciose group, but now contains only a single living species, the pacarana. Several of the extinct dinomyids were among the largest rodents known to date; these included the bison-sized ''Josephoartigasia monesi'' and the smaller ''Josephoartigasia magna''. The dinomyids are thought to have occupied ecological niches associated with large grazing mammals due to their ability to compete with the native ungulates of South America. On the other side, they could feed on aquatic or swampy plants along the ancient rivers. These large forms disappeared after the formation of a connection to North America. The modern pacarana is only modest in size, considerably smaller than the capybara. The Neoepiblemidae, an entirely extinct family, may actually be part of the Dinomyidae; both groups are undoubtedly closely related. Genera *Family: Dinomyidae **†'' Agnomys'' ''incertae sedis'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodents Of South America
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 native to all major land masses except for New Zealand, Antarctica, and several oceanic islands, though they have subsequently been introduced to most of these land masses by human activity. Rodents are extremely diverse in their ecology and lifestyles and can be found in almost every terrestrial habitat, including human-made environments. Species can be arboreal, fossorial (burrowing), saltatorial/richochetal (leaping on their hind legs), or semiaquatic. However, all rodents share several morphological features, including having only a single upper and lower pair of ever-growing incisors. Well-known rodents include mice, rats, squirrels, prairie dogs, porcupines, beavers, guinea pigs, and hamsters. Rabbits, hares, and pikas, whose incisors al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caviomorpha
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 now accepted as a genuine part of the rodents. Caviomorphs include the extinct Heptaxodontidae (giant hutias) and extant families of chinchilla rats, hutias, guinea pigs and the capybara, chinchillas and viscachas, tuco-tucos, agoutis, pacas, pacaranas, spiny rats, New World porcupines, coypu and octodonts (Vassallo and Antenucci, 2015). Origin The first known rodent fossils in South America are represented by the three taxa ''Cachiyacuy contamanensis'', ''C. kummeli'', and ''Canaanimys maquiensis'', as well as teeth from ''Eobranisamys'' sp. (Dasyproctidae) and ''Eospina'' sp., the latter two found also in the Santa Rosa fauna from the late Eocene or early Oligocene. By the late Oligocene, all superfamilies and most families of cavio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hystricognathi
The Hystricognathi are an infraorder of rodents, distinguished from other rodents by the bone structure of their skulls. The masseter medialis (a jaw muscle) passes partially through a hole below each eye socket (called the infraorbital foramen) and connects to the bone on the opposite side. This, together with their lack of an infraorbital plate and the relative size of the infraorbital foramen, distinguishes hystricognaths from other rodent groups. The 18 families within the Hystricognathi are divided into two parvorders, the Phiomorpha and the Caviomorpha. The Caviomorpha are mostly native to South America, with a few species in the Caribbean and North America, while the Phiomorpha occur in the Old World. Behavior Play behavior has been observed in seven hystricognath families. The caviomorphs chase each other, play-wrestle, and gallop. The longer-legged species chase more often than the shorter-legged species. They also rotate their heads and body muscles as a form of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoberomys Pattersoni
''Phoberomys pattersoni'' is an extinct rodent that lived in the ancient Orinoco River delta around 8 million years ago. It was the second-largest of the roughly seven species of its genus. Like many other rodents, ''Phoberomys'' was a herbivore with high-crowned premolars and molars. Description An almost complete skeleton was discovered in the Urumaco Formation at Urumaco, Venezuela, in 2000.''Phoberomys pattersoni'' at .org The new species was later classified with the name ''Phoberomys pattersoni'' in honor of palaeontologist Brian Patterson. Originally, ''Phoberomys pattersoni'' was estimated as being approximately 741 kg based on dimension ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scansorial
Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally, but others are exclusively arboreal. The habitats pose numerous mechanical challenges to animals moving through them and lead to a variety of anatomical, behavioral and ecological consequences as well as variations throughout different species.Cartmill, M. (1985). Climbing. In ''Functional Vertebrate Morphology'', eds. M. Hildebrand D. M. Bramble K. F. Liem and D. B. Wake, pp. 73–88. Cambridge: Belknap Press. Furthermore, many of these same principles may be applied to climbing without trees, such as on rock piles or mountains. Some animals are exclusively arboreal in habitat, such as the tree snail. Biomechanics Arboreal habitats pose numerous mechanical challenges to animals moving in them, which have been solved in diverse ways. These challenges include moving on narrow branches, mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammals Of The Andes
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles (including birds) from which they diverged in the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. Around 6,400 extant species of mammals have been described divided into 29 orders. The largest orders, in terms of number of species, are the rodents, bats, and Eulipotyphla (hedgehogs, moles, shrews, and others). The next three are the Primates (including humans, apes, monkeys, and others), the Artiodactyla (cetaceans and even-toed ungulates), and the Carnivora (cats, dogs, seals, and others). In terms of cladistics, which reflects evolutionary history, mammals are the only living members of the Synapsida (synapsids); this clade, together with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilhelm Peters
Wilhelm Karl Hartwich (or Hartwig) Peters (22 April 1815 in Koldenbüttel – 20 April 1883) was a German naturalist and explorer. He was assistant to the anatomist Johannes Peter Müller and later became curator of the Berlin Zoological Museum. Encouraged by Müller and the explorer Alexander von Humboldt, Peters travelled to Mozambique via Angola in September 1842, exploring the coastal region and the Zambesi River. He returned to Berlin with an enormous collection of natural history specimens, which he then described in ''Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique... in den Jahren 1842 bis 1848 ausgeführt'' (1852–1882). The work was comprehensive in its coverage, dealing with mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, river fish, insects and botany. He replaced Martin Lichtenstein as curator of the museum in 1858, and in the same year he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In a few years, he greatly increased the Berlin Museum's herp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammals Of Brazil
Brazil has the largest mammal diversity in the world, with more than 600 described species and more likely to be discovered. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, 66 of these species are endangered, and 40% of the threatened taxa belong to the primate group. 658 species are listed. The following tags are used to highlight each species' conservation status as assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature: Some species were assessed using an earlier set of criteria. Species assessed using this system have the following instead of near threatened and least concern categories: Infraclass: Metatheria Order: Didelphimorphia * Family: Caluromyidae ** Genus: '' Caluromys'' *** Brown-eared woolly opossum, ''C. lanatus'' LC *** Bare-tailed woolly opossum, ''C. philander'' LC * Family: Didelphidae ** Genus: '' Caluromysiops'' *** Black-shouldered opossum, ''Caluromysiops irrupta'' LC ** Genus: '' Glironia'' *** Bushy-tailed opossum, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammals Of Colombia
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles (including birds) from which they diverged in the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. Around 6,400 extant species of mammals have been described divided into 29 orders. The largest orders, in terms of number of species, are the rodents, bats, and Eulipotyphla (hedgehogs, moles, shrews, and others). The next three are the Primates (including humans, apes, monkeys, and others), the Artiodactyla (cetaceans and even-toed ungulates), and the Carnivora (cats, dogs, seals, and others). In terms of cladistics, which reflects evolutionary history, mammals are the only living members of the Synapsida (synapsids); this clade, together wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
