Plagiodontia aedium
The Hispaniolan hutia is a small, rat-like mammal endemic to forests on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. It lives in burrows or trees, and is active at night when it feeds on roots and fruits. A member of the hutia subfamily (Capromyinae), Threats to the Hispaniolan hutia include habitat loss and introduced species, such as rats or feral dogs.

Cuvier · Public Domain · 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
- PlagiodontiaPBDB
- 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.
5 occurrences of Plagiodontia aedium on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
5 occurrences- Pleistocene93%
- Holocene7%
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.
Plagiodontia aedium and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Plagiodontia aedium and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
25 taxa- Chelonoidis marcanoi4 sites
- Isolobodon portoricensis4 sites
- Nesophontes4 sites
- Acratocnus3 sites
- Anolis3 sites
- Celestus3 sites
- Isolobodon3 sites
- Leiocephalus3 sites
- Plagiodontia araeum3 sites
- Serpentes3 sites
- Aves1 site
- Brotomys1 site
- cf. Hyperplagodontia araeum1 site
- Chelonoidis gersoni1 site
- Crocodylus rhombifer1 site
- Hexolobodon1 site
- Homo1 site
- Homo sapiens1 site
- Megalonychidae1 site
- Neocnus1 site
- Neocnus comes1 site
- Parocnus1 site
- Rodentia indet.1 site
- Solenodon paradoxus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Plagiodontia aedium, 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
2 references- A new species of extinct Late Quaternary giant tortoise from Hispaniola4
- The Cuban Crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer) from Late Quaternary Underwater Cave Deposits in the Dominican Republic1
Each of the 5 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Plagiodontia aedium
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Cuvier
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- 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 itPlagiodontia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cuvier 1836