''Megalomys luciae'', also known as the Saint Lucia pilorie or Saint Lucia giant rice-rat, as well as several variant spellings, is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

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

that lived on the island of

Saint Lucia Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerindian ...

in the eastern

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

. It was the size of a small

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

, and it had a darker belly than ''

Megalomys desmarestii ''Megalomys desmarestii'', also known as the Martinique muskrat,Watts, 1990, p. 528 Desmarest's pilorie,Musser and Carleton, 2005 or the Martinique giant rice rat, is an extinct rice rat from Martinique in the Caribbean. Description It was amon ...

'', a closely related species from

Martinique Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in th ...

, and slender claws. Some other physical features that this rodent species have are brown/ochre dorsal coloration and white soft fur patches. They have webbed hind feet, smooth heels with interdigital pads, and slender claws. Their tail is longer than the length of their whole body from head to toe, the tail contains sparse hairs and is mainly covered with epidermal scales. Their skulls are very delicate with an amphora shape. The last known specimen died in the

London Zoo London Zoo, also known as ZSL London Zoo or London Zoological Gardens is the world's oldest scientific zoo. It was opened in London on 27 April 1828, and was originally intended to be used as a collection for science, scientific study. In 1831 o ...

in 1852, after three years of captivity.Flannery and Schouten, 2001 It probably became extinct in the latter half of the 19th century, with the last record dating from 1881.Ray, 1962 There is a stuffed specimen in the collection of the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

References

Literature cited

*Flannery, T. and Schouten, P. 2001. ''A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals''. London: William Heinemann. (UK edition) *Musser, G.G. and Carleton, M.D. 2005. Superfamily Muroidea. Pp. 894–1531 in Wilson, D.E. and Reeder, D.M. (eds.)
''Mammal Species of the World: a taxonomic and geographic reference''. 3rd ed
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols., 2142 pp. *Ray, C.E. 1962. The Oryzomyine Rodents of the Antillean Subregion. Doctor of Philosophy thesis, Harvard University, 211 pp. Turvey, S. T. (2012). A new species of recently extinct rice rat (Megalomys) from Barbados. Mammalian Biology Zeitschrift Für Säugetierkunde., 77(6), 404–413. Extinct rodents Rodent extinctions since 1500 Fauna of Saint Lucia Megalomys Mammals described in 1901 Mammals of the Caribbean {{SaintLucia-stub