Megalomys audreyae
| Megalomys audreyae | |
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| Holotype mandible (lower jaw) of Megalomys audreyae, seen from the right (lingual view) above and from the left (labial view) below. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Rodentia |
| Family: | Cricetidae |
| Genus: | Megalomys |
| Species: | M. audreyae |
| Binomial name | |
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Megalomys audreyae Hopwood, 1926 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Megalomys audreyae, known as the Barbudan (?) muskrat or the Barbuda giant rice-rat, is an extinct oryzomyine rodent from Barbuda in the Lesser Antilles. Described on the basis of a single mandible (lower jaw) with the first molar missing and an isolated upper incisor, both of uncertain but Quaternary age, it is one of the smaller members of the genus Megalomys. Little is known about the animal, and its provenance and distinction from "Ekbletomys hypenemus", an even larger extinct oryzomyine that also occurred on Barbuda, have been called into question. The toothrow in the lower jaw has a length of 8.7 mm at the alveoli. The third molar is relatively narrow and both the second and third molars have a wide valley between their outer cusps.
Remains of Megalomys audreyae were found by John Walter Gregory among cave breccia on Barbuda around 1900. The exact locality is unknown. In his 1901 description of Oryzomys luciae, Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major mentioned the Barbuda animal as another member of the Megalomys group, but he never published a description of the latter. Édouard Louis Trouessart gave the name Oryzomys (Megalomys) majori to it in his Catalogus Mammalium, but he did not describe it and therefore the name is a nomen nudum. In 1926, Arthur Hopwood finally described it and named it Megalomys audreyae after Gregory's wife Audrey, following Major's intention.
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