10 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Family SOLENODONTIDAE : Solenodons 



HlSPANIOLAN SOLENODON 

 SOLENODON PARADOXUS Brandt 



Solenodon paradoxus Brandt, Mem. Acad. Imp. Sci. St. Petersbourg, ser. 6, vol. 2, p. 



459, 1833 (Haiti). 

 FIGS.: Brandt, 1833, pis. 1, 2; Allen, G. M., 1910, pis. 1-3 (colored), 4-9 (anatomy). 



First made known by the Russian zoologist Brandt, a little 

 over a century ago, this large insectivore was supposed to be 

 nearly or quite extinct in its island habitat until 1907, when A. 

 Hyatt Verrill found that it was still living in the interior of 

 northeastern Hispaniola. 



It is a stoutly built animal, with a total length of about 22 

 inches, of which the strong tapering tail constitutes about 10 

 inches. Males and females are alike in size and in color, which 

 varies from a mixed blackish and buff dorsally, with clearer 

 yellowish sides, to a deep ferruginous tint, darkest and clearest 

 on the lower throat. Characteristic is a small squarish spot 

 of white in the middle of the nape. The tail is nearly naked 

 and dusky in color except at the base, which is flesh-color. The 

 feet and distal part of the limbs are nearly hairless and pale- 

 tinted. The muzzle is provided with a long cartilaginous 

 snout, supported at its base by a small round bone (the os 

 proboscidis). The feet are armed with strong, slightly curved 

 claws for digging, five on each foot. In its long tubular skull 

 it somewhat resembles Nesophontes and the Madagascar tenrec, 

 but the teeth show wide divergence from the former, in that 

 the anterior upper pair of incisors and the second lower incisors 

 are remarkably enlarged, the latter deeply grooved on the 

 inner side. This enlargement is suggested by the generic name 

 ("sword tooth"). The upper and lower canines are somewhat 

 reduced, the former about equaling the second incisor. Except 

 for the loss of one premolar, the full placental tooth formula is 

 present: it, ci, pml, ml = 40. 



Although this solenodon is said by Verrill to go under various 

 names in Hispaniola, as orso, hormigero, juron, these are merely 

 Spanish equivalents for "bear," "anteater," and "ferret." 

 Hearne (1835, p. 105), however, in presenting a specimen to the 

 Zoological Society of London in 1835, declared that in Haiti it 

 was known to the people as agouta. Verrill writes that in the 

 Dominican Republic it is called milqui. 



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