spiny rat

English

Noun

spiny rat (plural spiny rats)

1. Any of certain caviomorph rodents of the family Echimyidae, especially of genus Proechimys, that resemble rats and have stiff, pointed hairs, or spines.
   • 1999, Egbert Giles Leigh Jr., Tropical Forest Ecology : A View from Barro Colorado Island, page 28,

     Spiny rats, Proechimys semispinosus, are rodents weighing up to 500 g which eat fruits and seeds that have fallen to the forest floor. In Lutz catchment, a spiny rat's territory is three-fifths as wide as an agouti's (Smythe et al. 1982).

   • 2011, Terry A. Vaughan, James M. Ryan, Nicholas J. Czaplewski, Mammalogy, page 232,

     Members of the important Neotropical family Echimyidae, which includes a viety of roughly rat-sized rodents, are called spiny rats. […] Spiny rats are widely distributed in the Neotropics, occurring from Nicaragua southward through the northern half of South America to Paraguay and south-eastern Brazil.

2. Any murine rodent of the genus (sometimes considered a subgenus of Rattus).
3. Any murine rodent of the genus .
4. Any murine rodent of the genus .

Derived terms

• Central Sulawesi spiny rat ()
• large New Guinea spiny rat ()
• Mindanao spiny rat ()
• small spiny rat ()
• Sulawesi spiny rat ()

Translations

rodent of the family Echimyidae

• Finnish: piikkirotta, amerikanpiikkirotta
• French: échinomyie (fr) f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: echimiidi m pl

rodent of the genus Maxomys

• Finnish: idänokarotta, aasianokarotta
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: maxomys m pl

rodent of the genus Tokudaia

• Finnish: japaninokahiiri
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: muridi m pl, tokudaia

rodent of the genus Echiothrix

• Finnish: sulawesinokarotta
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: muridi m pl, echiothrix m pl

See also

• spiny long-footed rat (= Mindanao spiny rat)
• spiny tree-rat
• tenrec

Anagrams

• prytanis