Sigmodon hispidus

The hispid cotton rat is a rat long thought to occur in parts of South America, Central America, and southern North America. However, recent taxonomic revisions, based on mitochondrial DNA sequence data, have split this widely distributed species into three separate species. The distribution of S. hispidus ranges from Arizona in the west to Virginia to the east and from the Platte River in Nebraska in the north to, likely, the Rio Grande in the south, where it meets the northern edge of the distribution of S. toltecus. Adult size is total length 202–340 mm (8.0–13.4 in); tail 87–122 mm (3.4–4.8 in), frequently broken or stubbed; hind foot 29–35 mm (1.1–1.4 in); ear 16–20 mm (0.63–0.79 in); mass 50–250 g (1.8–8.8 oz). They have been used as laboratory animals.

Sigmodon hispidus

Chuck Homler d/b/a Focus On Wildlife · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
Also called
hispid cotton ratPBDB
Sits inside
SigmodonPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Sigmodon
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Mass
162.5 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 117 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 774 ka to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 31 of 34 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 3 of 34 occurrences807 ka–764 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences764 ka–722 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences722 ka–679 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences679 ka–637 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences637 ka–595 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences595 ka–552 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences552 ka–510 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences510 ka–467 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences467 ka–425 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences425 ka–382 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences382 ka–340 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences340 ka–297 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences297 ka–255 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences255 ka–212 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences212 ka–170 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences170 ka–127 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence127 ka–85 ka Mya — about 10 occurrences85 ka–42 ka Mya — about 10 occurrences42 ka–0 Mya — about 11 occurrences129 ka – 11.7 ka1.27 Mya0 Mya

34 occurrences of Sigmodon hispidus 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

34 occurrences

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.

Found in

2 formations

Wicomico — 29.60°N, 82.42°WWicomico — 29.42°N, 82.22°WShuler — 32.71°N, 96.71°W

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The named rock units Sigmodon hispidus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 31 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Sigmodon hispidus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Sigmodon hispidus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

891 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 34 sites for Sigmodon hispidus, 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

25 references

Each of the 34 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. 13 further references are not listed. 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 content1

Picture of Sigmodon hispidus

Credit
Chuck Homler d/b/a Focus On Wildlife
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Sigmodon hispidus was found in Sketchfab.

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 itSigmodon through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Say and Ord 1825