Hutias are an odd group of rodents dwelling on varied islands of the Caribbean. Though large, and typically wanting a bit plump, they’re energetic climbers and spend a substantial quantity of their lives in bushes. They appear virtually like a cross between a squirrel and a beaver, however are solely distantly associated to both. As a substitute, these rodents are within the Cavimorpha group that features many uncommon rodents of the Americas, corresponding to capybaras, guinea pigs and spiny rats. The biggest of all of the hutias is Desmarest’s hutia (Capromys pilorides), discovered solely in Cuba.
A brand new research now exhibits, based mostly on museum specimens, that the Cuban species is definitely two distinct species: Desmarest’s hutia on the japanese a part of Cuba, and the western conga hutia (Capromys geayi) on the western aspect.
“We used historic DNA analysis strategies to analyze the evolutionary relationships between traditionally previous specimens of hutias that had been collected from Cuba within the nineteenth century, and have been now within the collections of museums in Europe,” says research co-author Samuel Turvey, a professor on the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and knowledgeable on Caribbean mammals, each alive and extinct. “These included specimens that had initially been named as distinct species by zoologists over a century in the past, however had since been largely forgotten.”
DNA proof confirmed that these two animals break up round 1.75 million years in the past, lengthy earlier than people arrived in what’s at present the Americas. For hundreds of thousands of years, a big, deep-water channel break up Cuba into two distinct elements, probably maintaining the 2 hutia populations aside. Different Cuban species, corresponding to warblers, have been additionally break up by this divide.
Turvey says he doesn’t consider the closing of the channel hundreds of thousands of years in the past led to any mixing between the japanese and western species.
“There is no such thing as a motive to suspect that these two species are actually interbreeding, and there’s no proof of such secondary gene stream from our genetic knowledge,” he says. “The evolutionary divergence between them is akin to that proven by different distinct hutia species elsewhere within the Caribbean, and so means that they’re now reproductively remoted.”
The IUCN Pink Listing presently categorizes Desmarest’s hutia (typically often called the congo hutia) as a species of least concern, and Turvey says he believes it’ll keep that manner even with the brand new species break up. He additionally says that the western conga hutia would additionally probably have a conservations standing of least concern.
“Each … species have comparatively broad distributions throughout completely different elements of Cuba, and there’s no particular proof that both species has undergone a current inhabitants decline,” Turvey says. “Nevertheless, there’s undoubtedly a necessity for extra quantitative area knowledge to grasp the present standing and native threats for every species, and we shouldn’t be complacent about assuming that they’re essentially doing very effectively below the present extreme financial state of affairs in Cuba.”
Hutias are threatened by habitat loss and degradation as a result of agriculture and mining. Between 2001 and 2023, Cuba misplaced 402,000 hectares (almost 1 million acres) of forest, 11% of which was main forest, in keeping with International Forest Watch.
Hutias are additionally imperiled by invasive predators, notably canine and cats. Poaching can also be a significant risk, and Turvey says it could be a rising concern as a result of Cuba’s financial disaster linked to COVID-19 and the long-running U.S. embargo on the nation.
Already, a lot of the world’s identified hutia species are extinct. Many have been pushed to extinction shortly after the arrival of Europeans to the Caribbean islands. Extremely, the blunt-toothed large hutia (Amblyrhiza inundata), which disappeared lengthy earlier than European arrival and perhaps even earlier than people settled the islands, was the scale of a bear.
The Caribbean islands have been as soon as residence to many different mammal species, together with varied species of monkeys and sloths, in addition to hutias and solenodons — an odd, shrew-like creature that diverged from all different mammals round 73 million years in the past. One other group, the shrew-like nesophontes, are fully extinct.
This research might assist result in happier future conservation outcomes for the hutia. The final hutia on the close by Cayman Islands went extinct shortly after European arrival, however analysis has discovered this animal could also be very carefully associated to or a direct member of Desmarest’s hutia.
The paper’s authors write that this “raises the potential for future reintroduction … and restoration of the traditionally misplaced Cayman mammal fauna and the broader ecosystem companies (e.g., seed dispersal, regulation of vegetation construction) that this species would have offered.”
Quotation:
Henriksen, R. A., Woods, R., Barnes, I., Kennerley, R. J., Borroto-Páez, R., Brace, S., & Turvey, S. T. (2024). Genomics of historic Museum collections clarifies species variety in Cuban hutias (Capromys). Journal of Mammalogy, 105(6), 1365-1377. doi:10.1093/jmammal/gyae090
This article by Jeremy Hance was first revealed by Mongabay.com on 6 December 2024. Lead Picture: A Desmarest’s hutia in Cuba. Picture by Gutisoft through Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
What you are able to do
Assist to save lots of wildlife by donating as little as $1 – It solely takes a minute.
