page_title: List of rodents of the Caribbean
section_title: Honduran islands
hierarchical_section_title: List of rodents of the Caribbean / Miscellaneous / Honduran islands
context_page_description: The Caribbean region is home to a diverse and largely endemic rodent fauna. This includes the endemic family Capromyidae, which are largely limited to the Greater Antilles, and two other groups of endemic hystricognaths, the heteropsomyines and giant hutias, including the extinct bear-sized Amblyrhiza inundata. Lesser Antillean rodent faunas mostly consist of oryzomyines, members of a distantly related group of rodents, and include two of the largest known oryzomyines, Megalomys desmarestii and "Oryzomys hypenemus". Various other rodents are limited to land-bridge islands such as Trinidad, which were connected to the mainland during glacial-period lowered sea levels in the Pleistocene, or to smaller portions of the Caribbean archipelago. Much of the native rodent fauna of the Caribbean are extinct because of human influences, particularly following the introduction of invasive species such as Old World rats.
  For the purposes of this article, the "Caribbean" includes all islands in the Caribbean Sea and the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Barbados, which are not in the Caribbean Sea but biogeographically belong to the same Caribbean bioregion.
context_section_description: Several Caribbean islands are under the sovereignty of Honduras. These islands harbor two endemic rodents, one of which is now extinct. Several other species also occur on the Central American mainland.
  Dasyprocta ruatanica, an agouti known only from Roatán in the Bay Islands. It resembles the mainland Dasyprocta punctata, but is smaller.
  Geocapromys thoracatus, a hutia which occurred only on the remote Swan Islands. It probably became extinct in the 1950s and may be most closely related to the Jamaica species Geocapromys brownii.
  Oryzomys couesi, a widespread mainland species also known from Roatán.
  Sigmodon hispidus has been recorded from Roatán and nearby Guanaja, but the systematic status of Honduran populations previously ascribed to this species is presently unclear.
caption: Sigmodon hispidus or another cotton rat close to it is among the rodents recorded from the Bay Islands of Honduras.
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