Capromyinae Smith, 1842

Morgan, Gary S., Macphee, Ross D. E., Woods, Roseina & Turvey, Samuel T., 2019, Late Quaternary Fossil Mammals From The Cayman Islands, West Indies, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2019 (428), pp. 1-81 : 26-28

Subfamily Capromyinae Smith, 1842

REMARKS: The Capromyidae is a diverse group of rodents of fairly large body size (~0.5– 4 kg) endemic to the West Indies. Capromyids are most closely related to the Echimyidae (spiny rats) and Myocastoridae (coypu) among mainland Neotropical hystricognath rodents. These three families have been referred to the hystricognath superfamily Octodontoidea , which also includes the southern South American families Abrocomidae , Ctenomyidae , and Octodontidae ( Woods and Kilpatrick, 2005) . Molecular analysis by Leite and Patton (2002) suggested placement of the Capromyidae as a subfamily ( Capromyinae ) within the Echimyidae , although these authors sampled only a single species of capromyid, Capromys pilorides . More recent molecular phylogenies, which have included all extant genera of capromyids, have reached different conclusions over whether the Capromyidae could be distinguished as a family separate from the Echimyidae and Myocastoridae ( Kilpatrick et al., 2012; Fabre et al., 2014, 2017). Pending further molecular analyses, we tentatively recognize the Capromyidae as an endemic West Indian family, with close phylogenetic relationships to both the Echimyidae and Myocastoridae .

Current taxonomy recognizes five extant genera in the Capromyidae , separated into two subfamilies: Plagiodontia (Hispaniola) in the subfamily Plagiodontinae ; and Capromys , Mesocapromys , and Mysateles ( Cuba) and Geo- capromys ( Jamaica, Bahamas) in the subfamily Capromyinae ( Morgan, 1985; Woods and Kilpatrick, 2005; Silva Taboada et al., 2007; Borroto-Páez et al., 2012; Dávalos and Turvey, 2012). A recently extinct species of Geocapromys is known from Little Swan Island in the western Caribbean, and the Capromyidae also has an extensive late Quaternary history in the Greater Antilles and Bahamas as well as the Cayman Islands. In addition to material from the Cayman Islands described here, the capromyine Quaternary fossil record includes Capromys , Geocapromys , Mesocapromys , and Mysateles from Cuba, and Geocapromys from Jamaica and many Bahamian islands where this genus no longer occurs ( Morgan, 1985, 1989b, 1994a; Silva Taboada et al., 2007; Borroto- Páez et al., 2012; Dávalos and Turvey, 2012). The Quaternary record also documents several extinct capromyids from Hispaniola, divided among three subfamilies: two additional species in the extant genus Plagiodontia , and additional species in the extinct genera Hyperplagiodontia and Rhizoplagiodontia in the Plagiodontinae ; and two other extinct genera, each referred to an extinct subfamily, Hexolobodon (Hexolobodontinae) and Isolobodon (Isolobodontinae) ( Woods and Kilpatrick, 2005; Borroto-Páez et al., 2012; Dávalos and Turvey, 2012; Hansford et al., 2012). Isolobodon was originally described from Puerto Rico ( I. portoricensis ) but occurs there and on Vieques and the Virgin Islands only in archaeological sites, apparently because it was translocated from Hispaniola by Amerindian peoples. Quaternary fossil sites from Puerto Rico lack native capromyids but instead contain the large hystricognath Elasmodontomys , which has been referred to the Heptaxodontidae (“giant hutias”). Other heptaxodontids are also known in the Greater Antilles from Hispaniola and Jamaica, where they cooccurred with capromyids ( Woods and Kilpatrick, 2005; MacPhee, 2011). The presence of an early Miocene capromyid from Cuba, the extinct genus Zazamys from the Domo de Zaza fauna, establishes a long history of this family in the Greater Antilles (MacPhee and Iturralde- Vinent, 1995).

The genus Capromys has received considerable attention in the past few decades, much of which has focused on the description of new species, both living and extinct. Until the mid 1970s, almost all Cuban species in the family Capromyidae were referred to Capromys ( Varona, 1974) . During the 1970s, a proliferation of new generic and subgeneric names was proposed for Cuban capromyids formerly included in Capromys (e.g., Kratochvil et al., 1978; Varona and Arredondo, 1979). The systematic review by Silva Taboada et al. (2007) synonymized many of the previously described genera, subgenera, and species of Cuban capromyids, and recognized five genera of Capromyidae in Cuba, Capromys , Geocapromys , Macrocapromys , Mesocapromys , and Mysateles , one of which (the extinct genus Macrocapromys ) has since been synonymized with Capromys (Borroto-Páez et al., 2012) . The Quaternary and extant Cuban Capromyidae includes four genera and 11 described species (although see further discussion below): three species of Capromys (one living, C. pilorides , and two extinct, C. acevedo and C. latus ); one extinct species of Geocapromys ( G. columbianus ); six species of Mesocapromys (five living, M. angelcabrerai , M. auritus , M. melanurus , M. nanus , and M. sanfelipensis , and one extinct, M. kraglievichi ); and one living species of Mysateles ( M. prehensilis ).