Portal:Rodents
Portal maintenance status: (October 2018)
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Introduction
Rodents (from Latin rodere, "to gnaw") are mammals of the order Rodentia, which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents; they are found in vast numbers on all continents except Antarctica. They are the most diversified mammalian order and live in a variety of terrestrial habitats, including human-made environments.
Species can be arboreal, fossorial (burrowing), or semiaquatic. Well-known rodents include mice, rats, squirrels, prairie dogs, chipmunks, porcupines, beavers, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils and capybaras. Other animals such as rabbits, hares, and pikas, whose incisors also grow continually, were once included with them, but are now considered to be in a separate order, the Lagomorpha. Nonetheless, Rodentia and Lagomorpha are sister groups, sharing a most recent common ancestor and forming the clade of Glires.
Selected general articles
Juramaia, the oldest known eutherian
Eutheria (/juːˈθɪəriə/; from Greek εὐ-, eu- "good" or "right" and θηρίον, thēríon "beast" hence "true beasts") is one of two mammalian clades with extant members that diverged in the Early Cretaceous or perhaps the Late Jurassic. Except for the Virginia opossum, from North America, which is a metatherian, all post-Miocene mammals indigenous to Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America north of Mexico are eutherians. Extant eutherians, their last common ancestor, and all extinct descendants of that ancestor are members of Placentalia.
Eutherians are distinguished from noneutherians by various phenotypic traits of the feet, ankles, jaws and teeth. All extant eutherians lack epipubic bones, which are present in all other living mammals (marsupials and monotremes). This allows for expansion of the abdomen during pregnancy. Read more...- Ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta)
Euarchontoglires (synonymous with Supraprimates) is a clade and a superorder of mammals, the living members of which belong to one of the five following groups: rodents, lagomorphs, treeshrews, colugos and primates. Read more...
The mountain beaver (Aplodontia rufa) is a North American rodent. It is the only living member of its genus, Aplodontia, and family, Aplodontiidae. It should not be confused with true North American and Eurasian beavers, to which it is not closely related. Read more...
The glass catfish (Kryptopterus vitreolus) is one of the few chordates with a visible backbone. The spinal cord is housed within its backbone.
A chordate (/kɔːrdeɪt/) is an animal belonging to the phylum Chordata; chordates possess a notochord, a hollow dorsal nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, an endostyle, and a post-anal tail, for at least some period of their life cycle. Chordates are deuterostomes, as during the embryo development stage the anus forms before the mouth. They are also bilaterally symmetric coelomates with metameric segmentation and a circulatory system. In the case of vertebrate chordates, the notochord is usually replaced by a vertebral column during development.
Taxonomically, the phylum includes the following subphyla: the Vertebrata, which includes fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals; the Tunicata, which includes salps and sea squirts; and the Cephalochordata, which include the lancelets. There are also additional extinct taxa such as the Vetulicolia. The Vertebrata are sometimes considered as a subgroup of the clade Craniata, consisting of chordates with a skull; the Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. Read more...
The Anomaluridae are a family of rodents found in central Africa. They are known as anomalures or scaly-tailed squirrels. The seven extant species are classified into three genera. Most are brightly coloured.
All anomalurids but the single species in the genus Zenkerella have membranes between their front and hind legs like those of a flying squirrel, but they are not closely related to the flying squirrels that form the tribe Petauristini of the family Sciuridae. They are distinguished by two rows of pointed, raised scales on the undersides of their tails. The anatomy of their heads is quite different from that of the sciurid flying squirrels. Read more...
Gundis or comb rats (family Ctenodactylidae) are a group of small, stocky rodents found in Africa. They live in rocky deserts across the northern parts of the continent. The family comprises four living genera and five species (Speke's gundi, Felou gundi, Val's or desert gundi, common or North African gundi and Mzab gundi), as well as numerous extinct genera and species. They are in the superfamily Ctenodactyloidea. They first came to the notice of western naturalists in Tripoli in 1774, and were given the name 'gundi mice'. However, local people have always known about gundis. While not regarded as pests, some people hunt gundis for food. Read more...
Mammals are the vertebrates within the class Mammalia (/məˈmeɪliə/ from Latin mamma "breast"), a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles (including birds) by the possession of a neocortex (a region of the brain), hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands. Females of all mammal species nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands.
Mammals include the largest animal on the planet, the blue whale. The basic body type is a terrestrial quadruped, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in trees, underground or on two legs. The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta, which enables the feeding of the fetus during gestation.
Mammals range in size from the 30–40 mm (1.2–1.6 in) bumblebee bat to the 30-meter (98 ft) blue whale. With the exception of the five species of monotreme (egg-laying mammals), all modern mammals give birth to live young. Most mammals, including the six most species-rich orders, belong to the placental group. The largest orders are the rodents, bats and Soricomorpha (shrews and allies). The next three biggest orders, depending on the biological classification scheme used, are the Primates (apes, monkeys, and allies), the Cetartiodactyla (whales and even-toed ungulates), and the Carnivora (cats, dogs, seals, and allies). Read more...
Young male Laotian rock rat, Laonastes aenigmamus
The rodent family Diatomyidae, found in Asia, is represented by a single known living species, Laonastes aenigmamus. Read more...
African dormouse, Graphiurus sp.
A dormouse is a rodent of the family Gliridae (this family is also variously called Myoxidae or Muscardinidae by different taxonomists). Dormice are mostly found in Europe, although some species live in Africa or Asia. A nocturnal animal, dormice are particularly known for their long periods of hibernation.
As only one species of dormouse is native to the British Isles, the hazel dormouse, in everyday English usage "dormouse" can refer either to that one species or to the family as a whole. Read more...
Springhare (Pedetes sp.)
The Pedetidae are a family of mammals from the rodent order. The two living species, the springhares, are distributed throughout much of southern Africa and also around Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Fossils have been found as far north as Turkey. Together with the anomalures, Pedetidae forms the suborder Anomaluromorpha. The fossil genus Parapedetes is also related. Read more...
Animals are multicellular eukaryotic organisms that form the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, reproduce sexually, and grow from a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million animal species in total. Animals range in length from 8.5 millionths of a metre to 33.6 metres (110 ft) and have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The study of animals is called zoology.
Most living animal species are in the Bilateria, a clade whose members have a bilaterally symmetric body plan. The Bilateria include the protostomes—in which many groups of invertebrates are found, such as nematodes, arthropods, and molluscs—and the deuterostomes, containing the echinoderms and chordates (including the vertebrates). Life forms interpreted as early animals were present in the Ediacaran biota of the late Precambrian. Many modern animal phyla became clearly established in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion which began around 542 million years ago. 6,331 groups of genes common to all living animals have been identified; these may have arisen from a single common ancestor that lived 650 million years ago. Read more...
Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, marmots (including woodchucks), flying squirrels, and prairie dogs amongst other rodents. Squirrels are indigenous to the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa, and were introduced by humans to Australia. The earliest known squirrels date from the Eocene period and are most closely related to the mountain beaver and to the dormouse among other living rodent families. Read more...
The Old World porcupines, or Hystricidae, are large terrestrial rodents, distinguished by the spiny covering from which they take their name. They range over the south of Europe and the Levant, most of Africa, India, and the maritime Southeast Asia as far east as Flores. Although both the Old World and New World porcupine families belong to the Hystricognathi branch of the vast order Rodentia, they are quite different and are not closely related. Read more...
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Selected images
Young bank voles in their nest beneath a wood pile
Common degus have a complex vocal repertoire.
A nest of naked mole rats
Masillamys sp. fossil from the Eocene Messel Pit fossil site, Germany
Rodent Bait Station, Chennai, India
Brown rat in a flowerbox: Some rodents thrive in human habitats.
Two Patagonian maras with young, an example of a monogamous and communal nesting species
Some rodents, like this North American beaver with its dam of gnawed tree trunks and the lake it has created, are considered ecosystem engineers.
Chinchilla with its long whiskers
The horned gopher Ceratogaulus hatcheri, a burrowing mammal of the late Miocene to early Pleistocene, is the only known horned rodent.
Clockwise from top left: capybara, springhare, golden-mantled ground squirrel, house mouse and North American beaver representing the suborders Hystricomorpha, Anomaluromorpha, Sciuromorpha, Myomorpha, and Castorimorpha, respectively.
Rodents cause significant losses to crops, such as these potatoes damaged by voles.
Chinchilla fur coat, exhibited at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, Paris
Eastern chipmunk carrying food in cheek pouches
Subcategories
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Topics
Extant families in order Rodentia | |
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| Sciuromorpha ("Squirrel-like") | |
| Castorimorpha ("Beaver-like") | |
| Myomorpha ("Mouse-like") | |
| Anomaluromorpha ("Anomalure-like") | |
| Hystricomorpha ("Porcupine-like") |
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