Hypogeomys

Hypogeomys is a genus of rodents in the family Nesomyidae, found in Madagascar. There is one extant species, the Malagasy giant rat, currently an endangered species with a restricted range. There is also another species known from subfossils from a few thousand years ago, Hypogeomys australis. H. antinema measures 33 centimetres (13 in), making it the largest rodent in Madagascar, while H. australis seems to have been slightly larger.

Hypogeomys

Adrian Pingstone · 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
Also called
Malagasy giant ratPBDB
Sits inside
NesomyinaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Rodentia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 12 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesHolocene — about 2 of 2 occurrences17 ka–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences512 ka0 Mya

2 occurrences of Hypogeomys 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

2 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.

Hypogeomys and its relatives

Holocene

Where Hypogeomys and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

75 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Hypogeomys, 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

Each of the 2 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 Hypogeomys

Credit
Adrian Pingstone
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Hypogeomys antimena · FMNH:Mammals:151994

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 itNesomyinae through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Grandidier 1869