Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Nesomyidae > Hypogeomys > Hypogeomys antimena

Hypogeomys antimena (Malagasy giant rat)

Wikipedia Abstract

The Malagasy giant rat (Hypogeomys antimena), also known as the votsotsa or votsovotsa, is a nesomyid rodent found only in the Menabe region of Madagascar. It is an endangered species due to habitat loss, slow reproduction, and limited range (20 square kilometres north of Morondava, between the rivers Tomitsy and Tsiribihina) Pairs are monogamous and females bear only one or two young per year. It is the only extant species in the genus Hypogeomys; another species, Hypogeomys australis, is known from subfossil remains a few thousand years old.
View Wikipedia Record: Hypogeomys antimena

Endangered Species

Status: Critically Endangered
View IUCN Record: Hypogeomys antimena

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
10
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
68
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 21.07
EDGE Score: 5.17
View EDGE Record: Hypogeomys antimena

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  2.756 lbs (1.25 kg)
Diet [2]  Frugivore
Diet - Fruit [2]  100 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  2 years
Male Maturity [1]  1 year
Gestation [1]  4 months
Litter Size [1]  1
Maximum Longevity [1]  13 years
Nocturnal [3]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [4]  13 inches (33 cm)
Weaning [1]  35 days

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Madagascar dry deciduous forests Madagascar Afrotropic Tropical and Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests
Madagascar succulent woodlands Madagascar Afrotropic Deserts and Xeric Shrublands

Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) Sites

Name  Location   Map   Climate   Land Use 
Menabe - Andranomena Madagascar

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles Yes

Predators

Acrantophis dumerili (Dumeril's boa)[5]
Cryptoprocta ferox (Fossa)[5]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Eulinognathus hypogeomydis[5]
Xenopsylla petteri[6]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6International Flea Database
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
AZE sites provided by Alliance for Zero Extinction (2010). 2010 AZE Update.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0