''Heteromys'' is a genus of

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

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

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

Distribution

Heteromyines are distributed from southern

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

and

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

, and include all but

one 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

of the

castorimorph Castorimorpha is the suborder of rodents containing the beavers, gophers and the Heteromyidae, kangaroo rats. A 2017 study using retroposon markers indicated that they are most closely related to the Anomaluromorpha (the scaly-tailed squirrels an ...

species of South America. Like all of South America's other non- caviomorph 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 land ...

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

Taxonomy

References

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