Amphechinus

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Amphechinus
Temporal range: Oligocene–Miocene
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Eulipotyphla
Family: Erinaceidae
Subfamily: Erinaceinae
Tribe:† Amphechinini
Genus:† Amphechinus
Aymard, 1850
Species
  • A. akespensis
  • A. arvernensis
  • A. baudelotae
  • A. edwardsi
  • A. ginsburgi
  • A. golpeae
  • A. horncloudi
  • A. intermedius
  • A. kreuzae
  • A. major
  • A. microdus
  • A. minutissimus
  • A. robinsoni
  • A. taatsiingolensis

Amphechinus is an extinct genus of hedgehog of the family Erinaceidae, which lived in Asia and Europe during the Oligocene and in North America, Africa, Asia and Europe during the Miocene. The genus contains atleast 14 species. It is classified in the subfamily Erinaceinae and in the family Erinaceidae.

Contents

A single specimen examined in 1998 was estimated to have had a weight of 175 g (0.39 lb) when alive. [1] [ failed verification ]

Characteristics

As a member of the family Erinaceidae and in the subfamily Erinaceinae, Amphechinus may have been around the size of the European hedgehog, with males being larger than females.

Diet

Like many other genuses in the family Erinaceidae, Amphechinus mostly ate either small invertebrates like modern day hedgehogs like beetles, worms, caterpillars earwigs and more other insect species and shuffle through the ground to find any insects.

Distribution

Amphechinus may have either lived in forests and dense areas with enough food sources like caterpillars and other insects to eat during the Oligocene roughly 30 million years ago in Asia and Europe in the Miocene.

Sources

  1. ↑ Bloch, J.I.; Rose, K.D.; Gingerich, P.D. (August 1998). "New species of Batodonoides (Lipotyphla, Geolabididae) from the early Eocene of Wyoming: smallest known mammal?". Journal of Mammalogy. 79 (3): 804–827. doi: 10.2307/1383090 . JSTOR   1383090.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hedgehog</span> Subfamily of small spiny mammals

A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introduction. There are no hedgehogs native to Australia and no living species native to the Americas. However, the extinct genus Amphechinus was once present in North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Insectivora</span> Now abandoned biological grouping

The order Insectivora is a now-abandoned biological grouping within the class of mammals. Some species have now been moved out, leaving the remaining ones in the order Eulipotyphla within the larger clade Laurasiatheria, which makes up one of the basal clades of placental mammals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eulipotyphla</span> Order of mammals

Eulipotyphla is an order of mammals comprising the Erinaceidae ; Solenodonstidae (solenodons); Talpidae ; and Soricidae families.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gymnure</span> Subfamily of mammals

Gymnures, also called hairy hedgehogs or moonrats, are mammals belonging to the subfamily Galericinae, in the family Erinaceidae and the order Eulipotyphla. Gymnures resemble rats but are not closely related as they are not rodents; they are instead closely related to hedgehogs, which also belong to Erinaceidae. They are thought to have appeared in Eastern Asia before their closest relatives, and changed little from the original ancestor, which is thought to have been also the ancestor of the shrews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erinaceidae</span> Family of mammals

Erinaceidae is a family in the order Eulipotyphla, consisting of the hedgehogs and moonrats. Until recently, it was assigned to the order Erinaceomorpha, which has been subsumed with the paraphyletic Soricomorpha into Eulipotyphla. Eulipotyphla has been shown to be monophyletic; Soricomorpha is paraphyletic because both Soricidae and Talpidae share a more recent common ancestor with Erinaceidae than with solenodons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Long-eared gymnure</span> Species of mammal

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