Hyperplagiodontia Explained

Hyperplagiodontia, rarely called the wide-toothed hutia, is an extinct genus of hutia which contains a single species, Hyperplagiodontia araeum.^[1] The species was originally described as a member of the genus Plagiodontia along with the extant Hispaniolan hutia (P. aedium), but after morphometric analysis in 2012, was moved to its own genus, Hyperplagiodontia.^[2] Fossils of H. araeum have only been found on Hispaniola, in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Catalogue of Life.
2. Hansford, J., Nuñez-Miño, J. M., Young, R. P., Brace, S., Brocca, J. L., & Turvey, S. T. (2012). Taxonomy-testing and the ‘Goldilocks Hypothesis': morphometric analysis of species diversity in living and extinct Hispaniolan hutias. Systematics and Biodiversity, 10(4), 491-507.|Fabre, P.-H., Upham, N. S., Emmons, L. H., Justy, F., Leite, Y. L. R., Loss, A. C., Orlando, L., Tilak, M.-K., Patterson, B. D., and Douzery, E. J. P. (2017). Mitogenomic Phylogeny, Diversification, and Biogeography of South American Spiny Rats. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 34 (3): 613–633.