Ruatan Island agouti

Appearance

Their fur is orange brown over their entire bodies, fading to a paler, olivaceous shade on the underparts, and with grizzled black ticking over their backs. There is a white spot on the chin, and a yellowish patch on the belly. The overall colour is said to be richer than that of Central American agoutis, although the differences are slight, so are less reliable than body size in distinguishing the two species.

Ruatan Island agoutis closely resemble the widespread Central American agoutis, but are noticeably smaller in size, being only around 44 cm (17 in) in head-body length.

Range and habitat

The animals inhabit brushy scrub forest across the island of Roatán, where they feed on almonds, coconuts, hibiscus, and Pentaclethra pods. The Ruatan Island agouti, also called the Roatán Island agouti, is a agouti in the family Dasyproctidae. It is endemic to the island of Roatán, off the north coast of Honduras.

As the tourist industry has grown on their native island, hotels and other buildings are encroaching on their native habitat. While some remain in developed areas, living under hotel buildings and feeding off chicken grain and similar resources, most are now found in the hilly interior of the island, away from the coast.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

In crisis

It is threatened by habitat loss and hunting.

Ruatan Island agouti is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Ruatan Island agouti, Wikidata item Q1763019. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.