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Rodents Of The Caribbean
The Caribbean region is home to a diverse and largely endemic rodent fauna. This includes the endemic family Capromyidae (hutias), which are largely limited to the Greater Antilles, and two other groups of endemic hystricognaths, the heteropsomyines and giant hutias, including the extinct bear-sized ''Amblyrhiza inundata''. Lesser Antillean rodent faunas mostly consist of oryzomyines, members of a distantly related group of rodents, and include two of the largest known oryzomyines, '' Megalomys desmarestii'' and "''Oryzomys hypenemus''". Various other rodents are limited to land-bridge islands such as Trinidad, which were connected to the mainland during glacial-period lowered sea levels in the Pleistocene, or to smaller portions of the Caribbean archipelago. Much of the native rodent fauna of the Caribbean are extinct because of human influences, particularly following the introduction of invasive species such as Old World rats. For the purposes of this article, the "Caribb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glacial Period
A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate between glacial periods. The Last Glacial Period ended about 15,000 years ago. The Holocene is the current interglacial. A time with no glaciers on Earth is considered a Greenhouse and icehouse Earth, greenhouse climate state. Quaternary Period Within the Quaternary, which started about 2.6 million years before present, there have been a number of glacials and interglacials. At least eight glacial cycles have occurred in the last 740,000 years alone. Changes in atmospheric and associated radiative forcing were among the primary drivers of globally cold glacial and warm interglacial climates, with changes in ocean physical circulation, biological productivity and seawater acid-base chemistry likely causing most of the recorded changes Penul ... [...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. Most species are restricted to Cuba, but species are known from all of the Greater Antilles, as well as The Bahamas and (formerly) Little Swan Island off of Honduras. 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 pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cricetidae
The Cricetidae are a family of rodents in the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. It includes true hamsters, voles, lemmings, muskrats, and New World rats and mice. At over 870 species, it is either the largest or second-largest family of mammals, and has members throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. Characteristics The cricetids are small mammals, ranging from just in length and in weight in the New World pygmy mouse up to and in the muskrat. The length of their tails varies greatly in relation to their bodies, and they may be either furred or sparsely haired. The fur of most species is brownish in colour, often with a white underbelly, but many other patterns exist, especially in the cricetine and arvicoline subfamilies. Like the Old World mice, cricetids are adapted to a wide range of habitats, from the high Arctic to tropical rainforests and hot deserts. Some are arboreal, with long balancing tails and other adaptations for climbing, while others ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oryzomyini
Oryzomyini is a tribe of rodents in the subfamily Sigmodontinae of the family Cricetidae. It includes about 120 species in about thirty genera,Weksler et al., 2006, table 1 distributed from the eastern United States to the southernmost parts of South America, including many offshore islands. It is part of the clade Oryzomyalia, which includes most of the South American Sigmodontinae. The name ''Oryzomyini'' derives from that of its type genus, '' Oryzomys'', which means "rice rat" or "rice mouse". Many species are also known as rice rats. Taxonomy Contents of Oryzomyini An oryzomyine group was first envisaged by Oldfield Thomas in the early 20th century. He defined it to include pentalophodont species, which have a mesoloph(id) on the upper and lower molars, with a long palate (extending past the third molars). Thomas included '' Oligoryzomys'', '' Oecomys'', and '' Oryzomys'' (which included many species now in other genera), as well as '' Rhagomys'', which is currently classi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caribbean Bioregion
The Caribbean bioregion is a biogeographic region that includes the islands of the Caribbean Sea, Southern Florida in the United States and nearby Atlantic islands, which share a fauna, flora and mycobiota distinct from surrounding bioregions. Geography The Caribbean bioregion, as described by the World Wildlife Fund, includes the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica), the Lesser Antilles, the Lucayan archipelago (Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands), Southern Florida in the United States and Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao of the Dutch Caribbean. The Lucayan archipelago lies north of the Caribbean in the Atlantic Ocean, but is part of the bioregion based on its flora and fauna. The bioregion does not include Trinidad and Tobago; these islands rest on South America's continental shelf, and have been historically part of the South American continent. Trinidad and Tobago are part of the Orinoco bioregion. The climate of the ecoregion is tropical, and varie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biogeography
Biogeography is the study of the species distribution, distribution of species and ecosystems in geography, geographic space and through evolutionary history of life, geological time. Organisms and biological community (ecology), communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, allopatric speciation, isolation and habitat species-area curve, area. Phytogeography is the branch of biogeography that studies the distribution of plants. Zoogeography is the branch that studies distribution of animals. Mycogeography is the branch that studies distribution of fungi, such as mushrooms. Knowledge of spatial variation in the numbers and types of organisms is as vital to us today as it was to our early human ancestors, as we adapt to heterogeneous but geographically predictable Natural environment, environments. Biogeography is an integrative field of inquiry that unites concepts and information from ecology, evolutionary biology, taxonomy (bio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbados
Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American Plate, South American and Caribbean Plate, Caribbean plates. Its capital and largest city is Bridgetown. Inhabited by Island Caribs, Kalinago people since the 13th century, and prior to that by other Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples, Barbados was claimed for the Crown of Castile by Spanish navigators in the late 15th century. It first appeared on a Spanish map in 1511. The Portuguese Empire claimed the island between 1532 and 1536, but abandoned it in 1620 with their only remnants being the introduction of wild boars intended as a supply of meat whenever the island was visited. An Kingdom of England, English ship, the ''Olive Blossom'', arrived in Barbados on 14 May 1625; its men took possession of the island in the n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turks And Caicos Islands
The Turks and Caicos Islands (abbreviated TCI; and ) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and northern West Indies. They are known primarily for tourism and as an offshore financial centre. The resident population in 2023 was estimated by ''The World Factbook'' at 59,367, making it the third-largest of the British overseas territories by population. However, according to a Department of Statistics estimate in 2022, the population was 47,720. The islands are southeast of Mayaguana in the Bahamas island chain and north of the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Cockburn Town, the capital since 1766, is situated on Grand Turk about east-southeast of Miami. They have a total land area of . The islands were inhabited for centuries by Taíno people. The first recorded European sighting of them was in 1512. In sub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bahamas
The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of its population. It comprises more than 3,000 islands, cays and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and is located north of Cuba and north-west of the island of Hispaniola (split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the U.S. state of Florida and east of the Florida Keys. The capital and largest city is Nassau on the island of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes the Bahamas' territory as encompassing of ocean space. The Bahama islands were inhabited by the Arawak and Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan- speaking Taíno, for many centuries. Christopher Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his first landfall in the "New World" in 1492 when he landed on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba to Puerto Rico, the Lesser Antilles to the east from the Virgin Islands to Trinidad and Tobago, South America to the south from the Venezuela, Venezuelan coastline to the Colombia, Colombian coastline, and Central America and the Yucatán Peninsula to the west from Panama to Mexico. The Geopolitics, geopolitical region around the Caribbean Sea, including the numerous islands of the West Indies and adjacent coastal areas in the mainland of the Americas, is known as the Caribbean. The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest seas on Earth and has an area of about . The sea's deepest point is the Cayman Trough, between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, at below sea level. The Caribbean coastline has many gulfs and bays: the Gulf of Gonâve, the Gul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rattus
''Rattus'' is a genus of muroid rodents, all typically called rats. However, the term rat can also be applied to rodent species outside of this genus. Species and description The best-known ''Rattus'' species are the black rat (''R. rattus'') and the brown rat (''R. norvegicus''). The group is generally known as the Old World rats or true rats and originated in Asia. Rats are bigger than most Old World mouse, mice, which are their relatives, but seldom weigh over in the wild. Taxonomy of ''Rattus'' The genus ''Rattus'' is a member of the giant subfamily Murinae. Several other murine genera are sometimes considered part of ''Rattus'': ''Lenothrix'', ''Anonymomys'', ''Sundamys'', ''Kadarsanomys'', ''Diplothrix'', ''Margaretamys'', ''Lenomys'', ''Komodomys'', ''Palawanomys'', ''Bunomys'', ''Nesoromys'', ''Stenomys'', ''Taeromys'', ''Paruromys'', ''Abditomys'', ''Tryphomys'', ''Limnomys'', ''Tarsomys'', ''Bullimus'', ''Apomys'', ''Millardia'', ''Srilankamys'', ''Niviventer'', ''Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
