Heptaxodontidae, rarely called giant hutia, is an extinct family of large rodents known from fossil and subfossil material found in the West Indies. One species, Amblyrhiza inundata, is estimated to have weighed between 50 and 200 kg (110 and 440 lb), reaching the weight of an eastern gorilla. This is twice as large as the capybara, the largest rodent living today, but still much smaller than Josephoartigasia monesi, the largest rodent known. These animals were probably used as a food source by the pre-Columbian peoples of the Caribbean.
Heptaxodontidae contains no living species and the grouping seems to be paraphyletic[1] and arbitrary, however. One of the smaller species, Quemisia gravis, may have survived as late as when the Spanish began to colonize the Caribbean.[2]
Despite the vernacular name, heptaxodontids are not closely related to the extant hutias of the family Echimyidae. Heptaxodontids are thought to be more closely related to the chinchillas.[3]
^Thomas Defler (2018). History of Terrestrial Mammals in South America. Springer International Publishing. p. 154. Retrieved 2022-08-27.
^Day, David (1989). Vanished Species. New York: Gallery Books. p. 236. ISBN 9780831727826.
^Fabre, Pierre-Henri; Vilstrup, Julia T.; Raghavan, Maanasa; Der Sarkissian, Clio; Willerslev, Eske; Douzery, Emmanuel J. P.; Orlando, Ludovic (July 2014). "Rodents of the Caribbean: origin and diversification of hutias unravelled by next-generation museomics". Biology Letters. 10 (7). doi:10.1098/rsbl.2014.0266. ISSN 1744-9561. PMC 4126619. PMID 25115033.
Heptaxodontidae, rarely called giant hutia, is an extinct family of large rodents known from fossil and subfossil material found in the West Indies. One...
as a genuine part of the rodents. Caviomorphs include the extinct Heptaxodontidae (giant hutias), the extinct Josephoartigasia monesi (the largest rodent...
considered threatened by the IUCN. The extinct giant hutias of the family Heptaxodontidae also inhabited the Caribbean, but are not thought to be closely related...
America) Family Capromyidae: (10 species) hutias (South America) Family Heptaxodontidae: giant Hutias (recently extinct) Family Myocastoridae: (57 species)...
minimal weight of 200 kg (440 lb). Amblyrhiza inundata from the family Heptaxodontidae was a massive animal, it weighed 50–200 kg (110–440 lb). The largest...
Rodents are animals that gnaw with two continuously growing incisors. Forty percent of mammal species are rodents, and they inhabit every continent except...
This is a list of North American mammals. It includes all mammals currently found in the United States, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Canada, Greenland, Bermuda...
This is a list of Antillian and Bermudan animals extinct in the Holocene that covers extinctions from the Holocene epoch, a geologic epoch that began about...
†Kenyamyidae Lavocat 1973 Family †Bathyergoididae Lavocat 1973 Family †Heptaxodontidae Anthony 1917 Family †Neoepiblemidae Kraglievich 1926 [Perimyidae Landry...
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...
Global Information