Armored rat
The armored rat is a species of rodent in the family Echimyidae. It is monotypic within the genus Hoplomys. It is found in Latin America, from northern Honduras to northwest Ecuador. It possesses a range of spines on its back and sides of the body.
Description
Adults weigh between with males weighing more on average than females.They are born with soft fur, and the spines begin growing after the first month. The thick spines on the back and sides measure up to and in diameter. The head and body measures between in length, with the tail adding another. The color of the armored rat range from black to reddish brown, and has a pure white underside. They are similar in appearance to Tome's spiny-rat, but the eyes of the armored rat are smaller and they have a longer snout. Its diet includes fruit, insects and green plant matter. The normal litter size is one to three.
Habitat
The armored rat is a terrestrial species, which occupies burrows. These burrows are usually positioned in steep banks close to a water source, and can measure up to in length before reaching an enlarged nesting chamber. The armored rat covers its nesting chamber with vegetation and keeps it dry. It uses a separate chamber for defecating.This species is distributed from northern Honduras to northwest Ecuador, from lowlands up to around in altitude, including Panama's isolated Caribbean island of Isla Escudo de Veraguas.
Behaviour
The armored rat is nocturnal, spending most of its day inside its burrow and coming out at night to forage for food. It primarily eats fruits like bananas, wild figs, avocados, and mangoes, but it will also hunt insects like beetles and grasshoppers. It exhibits caching behaviour, bringing back some food to its burrow.The armored rat is considered a seed disperser for the palm Attalea butyraceae, as well as an ecosystem engineer, with its many pathways and burrows creating microhabitats for smaller organisms and nests for other animals—with one armored rat burrow found to contain an extra cavity full of iguanid lizard eggs.
While some armoured rats breed year-round, others will time their breeding to coincide with the rain. Pregnant females have been found from February to July. After 64 days of gestation, they give birth to a litter of one to three precocial pups. The young are sheltered in their mother's burrow and fed for some three to four weeks. By the time they're weaned off her milk, their fur has already begun to develop into spines. Armored rats mature at around 5 months of age.
Etymology
- The genus name Hoplomys derives from the two Ancient Greek words , meaning "armor", and , meaning "rat".
- The species name gymnurus derives from the two Ancient Greek words , meaning "naked", and , meaning "tail".
Phylogeny
Within Echimyidae, the genus Hoplomys is the sister group to the genus Proechimys. In turn, these two taxa share evolutionary affinities with other Myocastorini genera: Callistomys and Myocastor on the one hand, and Thrichomys on the other hand.