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Amblyrhiza Inundata
The blunt-toothed giant hutia (''Amblyrhiza inundata'') is an extinct species of giant hutia from Anguilla and Saint Martin that is estimated to have weighed between 50 and 200 kg (110 and 440 lb). It was discovered by Edward Drinker Cope in 1868 in a sample of phosphate sediments mined in an unknown cave (possibly Cavannagh Cave) in Anguilla and sent to Philadelphia to estimate the value of the sediments. It is the sole species of the genus ''Amblyrhiza'' in the fossil family Heptaxodontidae. Some authors have suggested that its extinction may have resulted from overhunting by pre-Columbian humans. However, it is unknown whether this species was contemporaneous with human populations. Fossil specimens discovered at the end of the 20th century on Anguilla have been dated to the last interstadial period, while very recent discoveries made on Coco Islet ( Saint-Barthélemy) are dated to 400,000 - 500,000 years; no bone has been recovered yet from a pre-Columbian archaeol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the cutoff of the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being 1.806 million years Before Present (BP). Publications from earlier years may use either definition of the period. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek grc, label=none, πλεῖστος, pleīstos, most and grc, label=none, καινός, kainós (latinized as ), 'new'. At the end of the preceding Pliocene, the previously isolated North and South American continents were joined by the Isthmus of Panama, causing Great American Interchang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Drinker Cope
Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontologist, comparative anatomist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science; he published his first scientific paper at the age of 19. Though his father tried to raise Cope as a gentleman farmer, he eventually acquiesced to his son's scientific aspirations. Cope married his cousin and had one child; the family moved from Philadelphia to Haddonfield, New Jersey, although Cope would maintain a residence and museum in Philadelphia in his later years. Cope had little formal scientific training, and he eschewed a teaching position for field work. He made regular trips to the American West, prospecting in the 1870s and 1880s, often as a member of United States Geological Survey teams. A personal feud between Cope and paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh led to a period of intense fossil-finding competition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giant Hutia
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 , 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 and arbitrary, however. One of the smaller species, ''Quemisia gravis'', may have survived as late as when the Spanish began to colonize the Caribbean. 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. Taxonomy Heptaxodontidae is divided into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anguilla
Anguilla ( ) is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin. The territory consists of the main island of Anguilla, approximately long by wide at its widest point, together with a number of much smaller islands and cays with no permanent population. The territory's capital is The Valley. The total land area of the territory is , with a population of approximately (). Etymology The native Arawak name for the island was ''Malliouhana''. In reference to the island's shape, the Italian ', meaning "eel" (in turn, from the Latin diminutive of ''anguis'', "snake") was used as its name. History Anguilla was first settled by Indigenous Amerindian peoples who migrated from South America. The earliest Native American artefacts found on Anguilla have been dated to around 1300 BC; remains of settlements da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Martin (island)
Saint Martin (french: Saint-Martin; nl, Sint Maarten) is an island in the northeast Caribbean Sea, approximately east of Puerto Rico. The island is divided roughly 60:40 between the French Republic () and the Kingdom of the Netherlands (), but the Dutch part is more populated than the French part. The division dates to 1648. The northern French part comprises the Collectivity of Saint Martin and is an overseas collectivity of the French Republic. As part of France, the French part of the island is also part of the European Union. The southern Dutch part comprises Sint Maarten and is one of four constituent countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands. On January 1, 2019, the population of the whole island was 73,777 inhabitants, with 41,177 living on the Dutch side and 32,489 on the French side. Note that the figure for the French side is based on censuses that took place after the devastation of Hurricane Irma in September 2017, whereas the figure for the Dutch side is o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Museum Of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain over 34 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum occupies more than . AMNH has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually. The AMNH is a private 501(c)(3) organization. Its mission statement is: "To discover, interpret, and disseminate—through scientific research and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monotypic Taxon
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispecific" or "monospecific" is sometimes preferred. In botanical nomenclature, a monotypic genus is a genus in the special case where a genus and a single species are simultaneously described. In contrast, an oligotypic taxon contains more than one but only a very few subordinate taxa. Examples Just as the term ''monotypic'' is used to describe a taxon including only one subdivision, the contained taxon can also be referred to as monotypic within the higher-level taxon, e.g. a genus monotypic within a family. Some examples of monotypic groups are: Plants * In the order Amborellales, there is only one family, Amborellaceae and there is only one genus, '' Amborella'', and in this genus there is only one species, namely ''Amborella trichopoda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heptaxodontidae
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 , 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 and arbitrary, however. One of the smaller species, ''Quemisia gravis'', may have survived as late as when the Spanish began to colonize the Caribbean. 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. Taxonomy Heptaxodontidae is divided into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hutia
Hutias (known in Spanish as jutía) are moderately large cavy-like rodents of the subfamily Capromyinae that inhabit the Caribbean islands, with most species restricted to Cuba and Hispaniola. Twenty species of hutia have been identified, but at least half are extinct. Only Desmarest's hutia and the prehensile-tailed hutia remain common and widespread; all other extant species are 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, with the giant hutias belonging in the superfamily Chinchilloidea. Description Most species have a head-and-body length that ranges from and weigh less than , but Desmarest's hutia has a head-and-body length of and weighs . They resemble the coypu in some respects. Tails are present, varying from vestiges to prehensile. They have stout bodies and large heads. Most species are herbivorous, though some consume small animals. Instead of burro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinchilloidea
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 ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dinomys
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 inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
