Three new mammal species from the Cayman Islands

[Logo7]

A joint study of fossil collections in British and American museums by the Zoological Society of London, the American Museum of Natural History, and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History described three new species of mammal from fossils collected from caves, sinkholes, and peat deposits on the Cayman Islands between the 1930s and 1940s. The three mammals are part of the genera Capromys, Geocapromys, and Nesophontes respectively, with all three belonging to new species in these genera (C. pilorides lewisi, G. caymanensis, and N. hemicingulus respectively). While the genus Nesophontes is made up entirely of extinct genera, the other two new species belong to two genera of hutia that have extant members. The bones of all three species appear to show evidence that they were at some point consumed by crocodiles. It is believed that these mammals likely went extinct around the 1700s due to the arrival of European settlers and several species of introduced mammals, such as rats, cats, and dogs, on the Cayman Islands. Here is an image of the fossils of the new species of Capromys and Geocapromys and the paper describing these three new species.



Paper (open access!): http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/handle/2246/6928

[Ravonium]

Always good to see new extinct animals from the Holocene described 

[Halichoeres]

Thanks for posting! The pdf is freely available at the link you provided.

[Logo7]

It is? My computer couldn't open the link, so I guess I didn't realize it. I'll change that in the original post now.