Megalomys luciae (St. Lucia Giant Rice Rat)

[Melanie]

aka St. Lucia Giant Rice Rat

St. Lucia Musk Rat (Megalomys luciae)


last collected in 1881 on St. Lucia for museums

island montane forest ground-dwelling herbivore endemic to St. Lucia, Lesser Antilles Islands

specimens in Paris and London

disappeared after deforestation for plantations

[another specialist]

www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php?species=12981

[another specialist]

The West Indian giant rice rats are divided into three species: M. desmarestii (Martinique), M. audreyae (Barbuda), and M. luciae (St. Lucia). M. desmarestii, the largest of the three, survived into the earliest 20th century and is known from live-caught museum specimens. It had a body measurement of 360 mm and a tail that measured about 330 mm. The fur on the underside and base of the tail was white, while its head and back were black or dark reddish brown. In addition the fur on this animal was long, stiff, and sometimes shiny. M. luciae, which survived into the mid 19th century and is also known from live-caught museum specimens, was smaller and almost completely brown. M. audreyae is known only from a fossil hemimandible and isolated incisor tooth of unknown age. Closely related rodents from the subfossil records of Antigua and Guadeloupe are currently under study (Flemming and McFarlane, 1997).

faculty.jsd.claremont.edu/dmcfarlane/extinctmammals/mammals/megalomys.htm

As supplied on other thread by melanie

[another specialist]

This rodent differed from the martinique muskrat and was distinguished by a more brownish belly, only the throat being white.

Two specimens are known, one of them was placed in the menagerie of the jardin des plantes in paris in august 1851, and died their later the same year...

[another specialist]

gap in nature

[sebbe67]

Became extinct sometime during the latter half of the nineteenth centrury.

The last recorded specimen died in London zoo in 1852, after having survived in captivity for three years. It differed from its relative in its darker belly and aspects of its skeleton, as well as in its slender, narrow claws

A gap in nature

[another specialist]

Extinct and vanishing mammals of the western hemisphere, with the marine species of all the oceans (1942)

Author: Allen, Glover M. (Glover Morrill), 1879-1942

www.archive.org/details/extinctvanishing00allerich

[another specialist]

Extinct and vanishing mammals of the western hemisphere, with the marine species of all the oceans (1942)

Author: Allen, Glover M. (Glover Morrill), 1879-1942

www.archive.org/details/extinctvanishing00allerich

[thomasw]

www.flickr.com/photos/92043060@N00/2277169857/

Picture of the specimen exhibited at the Grande gallery d'Evolution in Paris

[another specialist]

thomasw said:

www.flickr.com/photos/92043060@N00/2277169857/

Picture of the specimen exhibited at the Grande gallery d'Evolution in Paris

[another specialist]

Megalomys luciae

Author: Major, 1901.
Citation: Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 7, 7: 206.
Common Name: Santa Lucian Pilorie
Type Locality: West Indes, Lesser Antilles, Santa Lucia.
Distribution: Known only from Santa Lucia.
Status: IUCN – Extinct.
Comments: Provisionally retained as species by Ray (1962), who suspected that improved samples would demonstrate conspecificity with M. desmarestii.

www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?s=y&id=13000695

[another specialist]

Walker's Mammals of the World
By Ronald M. Nowak, Ernest Pillsbury Walker

[another specialist]

Taxonomy [top]
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family
ANIMALIA CHORDATA MAMMALIA RODENTIA CRICETIDAE

Scientific Name: Megalomys luciae
Species Authority
Infra-specific Authority: (Forsyth Major, 1901)
Common Name/s:
English – Santa Lucian Pilorie, Santa Lucia Giant Rice Rat
Assessment Information [top]
Red List Category & Criteria: Extinct ver 3.1
Year Assessed: 2008
Assessor/s Turvey, S. & Helgen, K.
Evaluator/s: McKnight, M. (Global Mammal Assessment Team) & Amori, G. (Small Nonvolant Mammal Red List Authority)
Justification:
Listed as Extinct because it has not been recorded since the before the year 1881.
History:
1996 – Extinct (Baillie and Groombridge 1996)
1994 – Extinct (Groombridge 1994)
Geographic Range [top]
Range Description: This species was known from St. Lucia.
Countries:
Regionally extinct:
Saint Lucia
Population [top]
Population: Extinct.
Habitat and Ecology [top]
Habitat and Ecology: Unknown.
Systems: Terrestrial
List of Habitats:
18 Unknown
Threats [top]
Major Threat(s): Presumable went extinct due to mongoose introductions, as the last historical record slightly predates the introduction of the mongoose.
Conservation Actions [top]
Conservation Actions: Non

www.iucnredlist.org/details/12981

[RSN]

www.naturanelmondo.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=123722

[Sebbe]

Updated checklist of endemic terrestrial mammals of the West Indies

Megalomys luciae Forsyth Major, 1901. Ann. Mag.
Nat. Hist. ser. 7, 7: 206.
COMMON NAME St. Lucia giant rice rat, St.
Lucia muskrat
TYPE LOCALITY St. Lucia, Lesser Antilles
DISTRIBUTION Known only from the type
locality
STATUS Extinct
COMMENT Extinction occurred in the 19th
Century. One captive animal may have lived from
1849 to 1852 at the London Zoo (Nowak 1999).

www.researchgate.net/publication/273831338_UPDATED_CHECKLIST_OF_ENDEMIC_TERRESTRIAL_MAMMALS_OF_THE_WEST_INDIES

[Sebbe]

Anthropogenic Extinction Dominates Holocene Declines of West Indian Mammals.

The extensive postglacial mammal losses in the West Indies provide an opportunity to evaluate extinction dynamics, but limited data have hindered our ability to test hypotheses. Here, we analyze the tempo and dynamics of extinction using a novel data set of faunal last-appearance dates and human first-appearance dates, demonstrating widespread overlap between humans and now-extinct native mammals. Humans arrived in four waves (Lithic, Archaic, Ceramic, and European), each associated with increased environmental impact. Large-bodied mammals and several bats were extinct by the Archaic, following protracted extinction dynamics perhaps reflecting habitat loss. Most small-bodied rodents and lipotyphlan insectivores survived the Ceramic, but extensive landscape transformation and the introduction of invasive mammals following European colonization caused further extinctions, leaving a threatened remnant fauna. Both large- and small-bodied nonvolant mammals disappeared, reflecting complex relationships between body size, ecology, and anthropogenic change. Extinct bats were generally larger species, paralleling declines from natural catastrophes.

www.researchgate.net/publication/319258591_Anthropogenic_Extinction_Dominates_Holocene_Declines_of_West_Indian_Mammals

[Sebbe]

Extinct insular oryzomyine rice rats (Rodentia: Sigmodontinae) from the Grenada Bank, southern Caribbean.

The Lesser Antillean island chain in the eastern Caribbean formerly supported a diverse rodent fauna including multiple endemic genera of oryzomyine rice rats. The Caribbean rice rats are now all extinct, with most island populations known only from Holocene palaeontological and zooarchaeological material and with many remaining taxonomically undescribed. Rice rat material is reported from several pre-Columbian Ceramic Age (late Holocene) archaeological sites on the Grenada Bank, including sites on Grenada and Carriacou, but the taxonomic identity and diversity of the Grenada Bank rice rats has remained uncertain. We provide a morphology-based description of rice rats from Grenada and Carriacou, and analyze their phylogenetic and biogeographical affinities to other Caribbean and mainland Neotropical oryzomyines. We recognize two taxa from the Grenada Bank: we describe the new species Megalomys camerhogne from Pearls (Grenada), representing the largest-bodied member of the extinct endemic Caribbean genus Megalomys, and we refer smaller-bodied oryzomyine material from Pearls and Sabazan (Carriacou) to the widespread extant Neotropical species Zygodontomys brevicauda. Body size variation within Megalomys correlates with island bank area and might thus reflect historical rather than modern biogeography. Zygodontomys specimens from the Grenada Bank fall within the upper end of size variation in extant populations and may constitute an example of ‘island gigantism’, but it is possible that occurrence of this widespread species on the Grenada Bank might reflect prehistoric human-mediated translocation. We predict further endemic Caribbean rice rat taxa remain to be discovered, including a possible species of Megalomys on the neighbouring island of St. Vincent.

mapress.com/j/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4951.3.2

[Sebbe]

Unexpected evolutionary diversity in a recently extinct Caribbean mammal radiation.

Identifying general patterns of colonization and radiation in island faunas is often hindered by past human-caused extinctions. The insular Caribbean is one of the only complex oceanic-type island systems colonized by land mammals, but has witnessed the globally highest level of mammalian extinction during the Holocene. Using ancient DNA analysis, we reconstruct the evolutionary history of one of the Caribbean's now-extinct major mammal groups, the insular radiation of oryzomyine rice rats. Despite the significant problems of recovering DNA from prehistoric tropical archaeological material, it was possible to identify two discrete Late Miocene colonizations of the main Lesser Antillean island chain from mainland South America by oryzomyine lineages that were only distantly related. A high level of phylogenetic diversification was observed within oryzomyines across the Lesser Antilles, even between allopatric populations on the same island bank. The timing of oryzomyine colonization is closely similar to the age of several other Caribbean vertebrate taxa, suggesting that geomorphological conditions during the Late Miocene facilitated broadly simultaneous overwater waif dispersal of many South American lineages to the Lesser Antilles. These data provide an important baseline by which to further develop the Caribbean as a unique workshop for studying island evolution.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4424637/