A Possible Heptaxodontine and Other Caviidan Rodents from the Quaternary of Jamaica1

Abstract

Abstract New World hystricognath rodents (parvorder Caviida) easily qualify as the most diversified members of the nonvolant Quaternary land mammal fauna of the West Indies. This paper describes three intriguing but problematic representatives of this group from Jamaican cave deposits. The first is the holotype (and still the only) specimen of Alterodon major from Wallingford Roadside Cave, a taxon that continues to generate controversy because specialists disagree as to its placement within Caviida. We reject the argument that it should be placed in Octodontidae and reaffirm the high probability that it is a clidomyine. The second fossil is a large proximal femur, apparently recovered from Sheep Pen locality near Windsor (Trelawney Parish) in the 1960s. Much larger than the femur of Clidomys (previously thought to be Jamaica's largest Quaternary mammal), in size and morphology the new fossil somewhat resembles femora of the eastern Caribbean heptaxodontine Amblyrhiza. Although firm allocation is not poss...