Echimyinae is a

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

of rodents belonging to the spiny rats family

Echimyidae Echimyidae is the family of neotropical spiny rats and their fossil relatives. This is the most species-rich family of hystricognath rodents. It is probably also the most ecologically diverse, with members ranging from fully arboreal to terr ...

. It contains 14 arboreal genera—all the members of the tribe

Echimyini Echimyini is a tribe of echimyid rodents, proposed in 2016, and containing 13 extant genera: all of the tree rats '' Echimys'', ''Phyllomys'', '' Makalata'', '' Pattonomys'', '' Toromys'', '' Diplomys'', '' Santamartamys'', and '' Isothrix'', the ...

, plus '' Callistomys''—a few terrestrial genera (''

Thrichomys ''Thrichomys'' is a genus of South American rodents in the family Echimyidae. It contains at least five species, found in Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay. They are as follows: * ''Thrichomys apereoides'' - Common punaré * ''Thrichomys fosteri'' - ...

'', '' Hoplomys'', and ''

Proechimys ''Proechimys'' is a genus of South American South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described ...

''), and a subaquatic genus ('' Myocastor'').

Systematics

The taxonomic content of Echimyinae has been reshaped over time, because of two realizations. The first is a better understanding of the evolution of morphological characters, leading to the recognition that key character states long used to group genera into higher units were demonstrably homoplastic. The second came from the a

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

analysis of molecular sequence data.

Phylogeny

The subfamily Echimyinae groups most of the spiny rat family's generic diversity into two tribes:

and

Myocastorini Myocastorini is a tribe of echimyid rodents, proposed in 2017, and containing the five extant genera '' Callistomys'', '' Hoplomys'', '' Myocastor'', ''Proechimys ''Proechimys'' is a genus of South American South America is a contine ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q987497 Echimyidae Mammal subfamilies