Boromys offella Miller, 1916:8
Oriente cave rat, Greater Cuban spiny rat, Larger Cuban spiny rat
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: Holocene (>1500 AD?); 1600 (Fisher & Blomberg, 2012)
IUCN RedList status: Extinct
Boromys offella is only known from subfossil remains, some of which occur in the same layer as Rattus sp., implying that it survived until European colonisation (Turvey & Helgen, 2008).
Distribution
Cuba (including Isla de la Juventud)
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
Media
References
Original scientific description:
Miller, Gerrit Smith. (1916). Bones of mammals from Indian sites in Cuba and Santo Domingo: (with one plate). Smithson. Misc. Coll., 66(12): 8.
Other references:
Allen, Glover Morrill. (1918). Fossil mammals from Cuba. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 62: 133-148.
Anthony, H. E. (1919). Mammals collected in eastern Cuba in 1917. With descriptions of two new species. Bulletin of American Museum of Natural History 41: 625-643.
Borroto-Páez, Rafael and Mancina, Carlos A. (2017). Biodiversity and conservation of Cuban mammals: past, present, and invasive species. Journal of Mammalogy 98(4): 964-985. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyx017
Borroto-Páez, Rafael, Mancina, Carlos A., Woods, Charles A. and Kilpatrick, C. William. (2012). Checklist: Updated Checklist of Endemic Terrestrial Mammals of the West Indies, pp. 389-415. In: Borroto-Páez, Rafael, Woods, Charles A. and Sergile, F. E. (eds.). Terrestrial Mammals of the West Indies: Contributions. Gainesville, Florida: Florida Museum of Natural History and Wacahoota Press. 482 pp.
Cooke, Siobhán B., Dávalos, Liliana M., Mychajliw, Alexis M. Turvey, Samuel T. and Upham, Nathan S. (2017). Anthropogenic Extinction Dominates Holocene Declines of West Indian Mammals. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 48: 301-327. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-110316-022754
Day, David. (1981). The Doomsday Book of Animals: A Natural History of Vanished Species. New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press.
Fisher, Diana O. and Blomberg, Simon P. (2012). Inferring Extinction of Mammals from Sighting Records, Threats, and Biological Traits. Conservation Biology 26(1): 57-67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2011.01797.x
Fisher, Diana O. and Humphreys, Aelys M. (2024). Evidence for modern extinction in plants and animals. Biological Conservation 298: 110772. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110772
Goodwin, Harry A. and Goodwin, J. M. (1973). List of mammals which have become extinct or are possibly extinct since 1600. Int. Union Conserv. Nat. Occas. Pap. 8: 1-20.
Jiménez Vázquez O, C ondis MM, and Elvis García C (2005) Vertebrados post-glaciales en un residuario fósil de Tyto alba scopoli (Aves: Tytonidae) en el occidente de Cuba. Revista Mexicana de Mastozoología 9, 85–112.
Lee, T. E., Fisher, D. O., Blomberg, S. P. and Wintle, B. A. (2017). Extinct or still out there? Disentangling influences on extinction and rediscovery helps to clarify the fate of species on the edge. Global Change Biology 23(2): 621-634. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13421
Silva Taboada, G., Suárez Duque, W. & Díaz Franco, S. 2007 Compendio de los mamíferos terrestres autóctonos de Cuba vivientes y extinguidos. La Habana, Cuba: Museo Nacional de Historia Natural.
Turvey, Samuel T. (2009). Holocene mammal extinctions, pp. 41-61. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.
Turvey, Samuel T. and Fritz, Susanne A. (2011). The ghosts of mammals past: biological and geographical patterns of global mammalian extinction across the Holocene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366(1577): 2564-2576. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0020 [Supplementary Information]
Turvey, S. and Helgen, K. (2008). Boromys offella. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.2. (http://www.iucnredlist.org). Downloaded on 23 December 2012.
Turvey, S. & Helgen, K. 2016. Boromys offella. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T2885A22206052. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-2.RLTS.T2885A22206052.en. Accessed on 18 June 2022.
Upham, Nathan S. (2017). Past and present of insular Caribbean mammals: understanding Holocene extinctions to inform modern biodiversity conservation. Journal of Mammalogy 98(4): 913-917. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyx079
https://extinctanimals.proboards.com/thread/7023/boromys-offella-oriente-cave-rat