Geocapromys
Geocapromys is a genus of rodent belonging to the hutia subfamily and are currently only found on the Bahamas and Jamaica. However, they formerly ranged throughout the Caribbean, from Cuba to the Cayman Islands to even islands off mainland Central America.

Uknown employe of Museum of Comparitive Zoology, Harvard University · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- CapromyinaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivore, carnivorePBDB, for Capromyinae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Capromyinae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
28 occurrences of Geocapromys on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
28 occurrences- Pleistocene27%
- Holocene73%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Geocapromys and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Geocapromys and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
159 taxa- Capromys15 sites
- Macrotus waterhousii11 sites
- Cyclura nubila9 sites
- Nesophontes9 sites
- Crocodylus rhombifer8 sites
- Chiroptera7 sites
- Anolis6 sites
- Osteopilus septentrionalis6 sites
- Alsophis cantherigerus5 sites
- Anolis conspersus5 sites
- Chilabothrus5 sites
- Leiocephalus5 sites
- Passeriformes5 sites
- Aristelliger praesignis4 sites
- Athene cunicularia4 sites
- Brachyphylla nana4 sites
- Cubophis vudii4 sites
- Cyclura4 sites
- Patagioenas leucocephala4 sites
- Puffinus lherminieri4 sites
- Ameiva3 sites
- Anolis sagrei3 sites
- Aves3 sites
- Chelonoidis3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 26 sites for Geocapromys, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
8 references- Late Quaternary fossil vertebrates from the Cayman Islands10
- Holocene vertebrates from a dry cave on Eleuthera Island, Commonwealth of The Bahamas7
- The Cuban crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer) from late Quaternary fossil deposits in the Bahamas and Cayman Islands3
- Nueva especie de ave fósil (Strigiformes: Tytonidae) del Pleistoceno superior de Cuba3
- The Cuban Crocodile, Crocodylus rhombifer, from Late Quaternary Fossil Deposits on Grand Cayman2
- The fossil avifauna of the tar seeps Las Breas de San Felipe, Matanzas, Cuba1
- Exceptionally well preserved late Quaternary plant and vertebrate fossils from a blue hole on Abaco, The Bahamas1
- Living and late Holocene fossil vertebrates and the vegetation of the Cockpit Country, Jamaica1
Each of the 28 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Geocapromys
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Uknown employe of Museum of Comparitive Zoology, Harvard University
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Geocapromys ingrahami · ummz:mammals:101794
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Geocapromys”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCapromyinae through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Chapman 1901