Megalomys luciae Forsyth Major, 1901:206
Santa Lucian pilorie, Santa Lucia giant rice rat, St Lucia musk rat
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Synonym/s: Oryzomys luciae Forsyth Major, 1901
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: 1852 (Fisher & Blomberg, 2012; Lee et al., 2017); before 1881 (Turvey & Helgen, 2008)
IUCN RedList status: Extinct
Distribution
Saint Lucia, Lesser Antilles
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
Media
Above: taxidermy specimen in the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. Photo by Vassil 2013. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
References
Original scientific description:
Forsyth Major, C. I. (1901). The musk-rat of Santa Lucia (Antilles). Annals and Magazine of Natural History (7) 7(38): 204-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222930108678460
Other references:
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.
Brace, Selina et al. (2015). Unexpected evolutionary diversity in a recently extinct Caribbean mammal radiation. Proc Biol Sci. B 282(1807): 20142371.
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
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.
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
Ray, C. E. (1962). Oryzomyine rodents of the Antillean subregion. Unpubl. Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard University, 356 pp.
Turvey, Samuel T. and Helgen, K. (2008). Megalomys luciae. In: IUCN 2013. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.1. (http://www.iucnredlist.org). Downloaded on 28 July 2013.
Turvey, Samuel T. and Helgen, K. (2017). Megalomys luciae. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2017: e.T12981A22377126. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T12981A22377126.en. Accessed on 19 June 2022.
Turvey, Samuel T., Weksler, M., Morris, E. L. and Nokkert, M. (2010) Taxonomy, phylogeny and diversity of the extinct Lesser Antillean rice rats (Sigmodontinae: Oryzomyini), with description of a new genus and species. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 160: 748-772.
Westergaard, G. (2023). Colonial entanglement in extinction narratives: The afterlives of two Saint Lucia giant rice rats. Journal of Natural Science Collections 11: 3-12.
https://extinctanimals.proboards.com/thread/7110/megalomys-luciae-lucia-giant-rice