Mammals of the Caribbean

A unique and diverse albeit phylogenetically restricted mammal fauna is known from the Caribbean region. The region—specifically, all islands in the Caribbean Sea (except for small islets close to the continental mainland) and the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Barbados, which are not in the Caribbean Sea but biogeographically belong to the same Caribbean bioregion—has been home to several families found nowhere else, but much of this diversity is now extinct.

The bat faunas of much of the Caribbean show similarities that led to the proposal of a distinct Caribbean faunal region, bounded by "Koopman's Line". This region excludes several of the region's islands, including the Grenadines, Grenada, Trinidad, Tobago, and other islands near the American mainland, such as Margarita, Cozumel, and the Florida Keys. The faunas of islands outside Koopman's Line are similar to those of the adjacent mainland, though usually smaller; in contrast, the region inside Koopman's Line harbors relatively few species shared with the mainland and many of its species belong to endemic genera, subfamilies, and even families.

Excluding bats, nearly 90% of the mammals of the Caribbean faunal region have gone extinct since the late , including all the sloths and monkeys, the unique insectivore Nesophontes, two of four species of solenodon, and a variety of rodents including all giant hutias, leaving only a few hutia species extant. Most of these species (the sloths, monkeys, and caviomorph rodents) were of South American origin. The oryzomyine rodents were of ultimately of Nearctic origin, but except for those on Jamaica would also have reached the Caribbean via South America. The origin(s) of the Caribbean eulipotyphlans are uncertain.

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