Hexolobodon
The imposter hutia is an extinct species of rodent in the hutia subfamily (Capromyinae). It is the only species in the genus Hexolobodon and tribe Hexolobodontini. It was found only on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, and went extinct sometime after European colonization in the 1500s.

National Museum of Natural History · CC0 · 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
- EchimyidaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Echimyidae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Echimyidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 129 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
3 occurrences of Hexolobodon on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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
3 occurrences- Pleistocene30%
- Holocene70%
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.
Hexolobodon and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Hexolobodon and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
16 taxa- Isolobodon2 sites
- Isolobodon portoricensis2 sites
- Acratocnus1 site
- Anolis1 site
- Brotomys1 site
- Celestus1 site
- Chelonoidis marcanoi1 site
- Insulacebus toussaintiana1 site
- Leiocephalus1 site
- Neocnus1 site
- Nesophontes1 site
- Plagiodontia1 site
- Plagiodontia aedium1 site
- Plagiodontia araeum1 site
- Rhizoplagiodontia lemkei1 site
- Serpentes1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Hexolobodon, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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- Endemic rodents of Hispaniola: biogeography and extinction timing during the Holocene2
- A new species of extinct Late Quaternary giant tortoise from Hispaniola1
Each of the 3 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 Hexolobodon
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- National Museum of Natural History
- Licence
- CC0
- 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 was 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 itEchimyidae through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Miller 1929