| Solenodon ottenwalderi Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Eulipotyphla |
| Family: | Solenodontidae |
| Genus: | Solenodon |
| Species: | †S. ottenwalderi |
| Binomial name | |
| †Solenodon ottenwalderi Viñola-López et. al., 2024 | |
Solenodon ottenwalderi is an extinct species of Solenodon that inhabited Haiti during the Quaternary period.
Solenodon ottenwalderi was endemic to western Hispaniola. [1]
Hispaniola is an island between Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the second-largest by land area, after Cuba. The 76,192-square-kilometre (29,418 sq mi) island is divided into two separate sovereign countries: the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic (48,445 km2 to the east and the French and Haitian Creole–speaking Haiti (27,750 km2 to the west. The only other divided island in the Caribbean is Saint Martin, which is shared between France and the Netherlands.
Eulipotyphla is an order of mammals comprising the Erinaceidae ; Solenodontidae (solenodons); Talpidae ; and Soricidae families.
The Cuban solenodon or almiquí is a small, furry, shrew-like mammal endemic to mountainous forests on Cuba. It is the only species in the genus Atopogale. An elusive animal, it lives in burrows and is only active at night when it uses its unusual toxic saliva to feed on insects. The solenodons, native to the Caribbean, are one of only a few mammals that are venomous.
Solenodons are venomous, nocturnal, burrowing, insectivorous mammals belonging to the family Solenodontidae. The two living solenodon species are the Cuban solenodon and the Hispaniolan solenodon. Threats to both species include habitat destruction and predation by non-native cats, dogs, and mongooses, introduced by humans to the solenodons' home islands to control snakes and rodents.
Pico Duarte is the highest peak in the Dominican Republic, on the island of Hispaniola and in all the Caribbean. At 3,101 m (10,174 ft) above sea level, it gives Hispaniola the 16th-highest maximum elevation of any island in the world. Additionally, it is only 85 kilometres northeast of the region's lowest point, Lake Enriquillo, 46 m below sea level. It is part of the Cordillera Central range, which extends from the plains between San Cristóbal and Baní to the northwestern peninsula of Haiti, where it is known as the Massif du Nord. The highest elevations of the Cordillera Central are found in the Pico Duarte and Valle Nuevo massifs.
Nesophontes, sometimes called West Indies shrews, is the sole genus of the extinct, monotypic mammal family Nesophontidae in the order Eulipotyphla. These animals were small insectivores, about 5 to 15 cm long, with a long slender snout and head and a long tail. They were endemic to the Greater Antilles, in Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, and the Cayman Islands.
The Hispaniolan solenodon, also known as the agouta, is a small, furry, shrew-like mammal endemic to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Like other solenodons, it is a venomous, insect-eating animal that lives in burrows and is active at night. It is an elusive animal and was only first described in 1833; its numbers are stable in protected forests but it remains the focus of conservation efforts.
The Hispaniolan hutia is a small, threatened, rat-like mammal endemic to forests on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. It lives in burrows or trees, and is active at night when it feeds on roots and fruits. A member of the hutia subfamily (Capromyinae), it is endangered from habitat loss and introduced species, such as rats or feral dogs.
The St. Michel nesophontes is an extinct species of mammal in the family Nesophontidae. It was endemic to Hispaniola.
Marcano's solenodon is an extinct species of mammal in the family Solenodontidae known only from skeletal remains found on the island of Hispaniola.
The Caribbean bioregion is a biogeographic region that includes the islands of the Caribbean Sea and nearby Atlantic islands, which share a fauna, flora and mycobiota distinct from surrounding bioregions.
The Hispaniola monkey is an extinct primate that was endemic on the island of Hispaniola, in the present-day Dominican Republic. The species is thought to have gone extinct around the 16th century. The exact timing and cause of the extinction are unclear, but it is likely related to the settlement of Hispaniola by Europeans after 1492.
Xenotrichini is a tribe of extinct primates, which lived on the Greater Antilles as recently as the 16th century.
A unique and diverse albeit phylogenetically restricted mammal fauna is known from the Caribbean region. The region—specifically, all islands in the Caribbean Sea and the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Barbados, which are not in the Caribbean Sea but biogeographically belong to the same Caribbean bioregion—has been home to several families found nowhere else, but much of this diversity is now extinct.
Chelonoidis is a genus of turtles in the tortoise family erected by Leopold Fitzinger in 1835. They are found in South America and the Galápagos Islands, and formerly had a wide distribution in the West Indies.
Insulacebus is an extinct monotypic genus of New World monkey found on the island of Hispaniola from Late Quaternary deposits. Fossils of the type species Insulacebus toussaintiana have been recovered from the Plain of Formon, Department du Sud, southwestern Haiti. The body mass of the monkey was estimated between 4,159 and 5,443 grams. The dentally primitive I. toussaintiana was likely derived from a fauna that was evolving on the mainland before the Miocene monkey bed of the Honda Group of central Colombia, and stems from a pre-Middle Miocene colonization from the South American mainland.
Oscar Paulino Arredondo de la Mata was a Cuban paleontologist. He described a number of birds and mammals of the Quaternary Period from fossils obtained from Cuban caves. He has been called the "father of Cuban vertebrate paleontology".
The Hispaniolan dry forests are a tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregion on the island of Hispaniola. They cover 15,123 km2 (5,839 sq mi), around 20% of the island's area.