Echimyinae is a subfamily 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'', th ...

, plus ''

Callistomys The painted tree-rat (''Callistomys pictus'') is a species of spiny rat from Brazil, restricted to north-eastern Bahia in eastern Brazil. It is the only species in the genus ''Callistomys''. Identification With a total length of ca. 30 cm ...

''—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: * Common punaré (''Thrichomys apereoides'') * Foster's punaré (''Thri ...

'', ''

Hoplomys The armored rat (''Hoplomys gymnurus'') is a species of rodent in the family Echimyidae. It is monotypic within the genus ''Hoplomys''. It is found in Latin America, from northern Honduras to northwest Ecuador. It possesses a range of spines on ...

'', and ''

Proechimys ''Proechimys'' is a genus of South American spiny rats of the family Echimyidae. All species of the genus are terrestrial. In the lowland Neotropical forests, ''Proechimys'' rodents are often the most abundant non-volant mammals. They are recog ...

''), and a subaquatic genus (''

Myocastor ''Myocastor'' is a genus of rodent that contains the living nutria (or coypu), as well as several fossil species. Taxonomy Due to similar cranial morphology, the nutria was once considered a close relative of the Caribbean hutias and placed toge ...

'').

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 Homoplasy, in biology and phylogenetics, is the term used to describe a Phenotypic trait, feature that has been gained or lost independently in separate lineages over the course of evolution. This is different from Homology (biology), homology, wh ...

. The second came from the a

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

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 spiny rats of the family Echimyida ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q987497 Echimyidae Mammal subfamilies