About: Octodontidae   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

Octodontidae or octodontids, is a family of rodents restricted to southwestern South America. Thirteen species of octodontid are recognised, arranged in nine genera. The best known species is the degu (Octodon degus).

AttributesValues
rdfs:label
  • Octodontidae
rdfs:comment
  • Octodontidae or octodontids, is a family of rodents restricted to southwestern South America. Thirteen species of octodontid are recognised, arranged in nine genera. The best known species is the degu (Octodon degus).
sameAs
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:animals/pro...iPageUsesTemplate
Name
  • Octodontidae
Caption
Class
Family
Order
Phylum
abstract
  • Octodontidae or octodontids, is a family of rodents restricted to southwestern South America. Thirteen species of octodontid are recognised, arranged in nine genera. The best known species is the degu (Octodon degus). Octodontids are medium sized rodents, ranging from 12 to 20 cm (4.7 to 7.9 in) in body length. They have long, silky, fur, which is typically brownish in color, and often paler on the underside. The name 'octodont' derives from the wear pattern of their teeth, which resembles a figure 8. Most are nocturnal, social, burrowing animals, though the degu is largely diurnal. They are herbivorous, eating tubers, bulbs, and cactuses. Some authors have suggested that the octodontids should be reclassified in the order Lagomorpha, but this has not been supported by further analyses (e.g. Opazo, 2005). Older literature includes the tuco-tucos in the family, as the subfamily Ctenomyinae, but these animals are normally now treated as a separate family, Ctenomyidae. Two of the genera now included in this family, Salinoctomys and Pipanacoctomys, have only recently been described. There is some evidence that evolution within the family may have resulted from polyploidy. The Plains viscacha rat (Tympanoctomys barrerae), is tetraploid, with 102 chromosomes, and the recently described Golden viscacha rat (Pipanacoctomys aureus) has 92. Members of the genus Aconaemys are referred to as rock rats, and members of genus Octodon are all called degus, though the name degu on its own implies Octodon degu. The single member of Spalacopus, is called the Coruro (Spalacopus cyanus). Members of the other genera are called viscacha rats: note, however, that viscachas are not octodontids - they are members of the chinchilla family Chinchillidae.
is Family of
Alternative Linked Data Views: ODE     Raw Data in: CXML | CSV | RDF ( N-Triples N3/Turtle JSON XML ) | OData ( Atom JSON ) | Microdata ( JSON HTML) | JSON-LD    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3217, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu), Standard Edition
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2012 OpenLink Software