Rice rat
| Oryzomyini Temporal range: – recent |
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| Marsh rice rat (Oryzomys palustris) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Rodentia |
| Family: | Cricetidae |
| Subfamily: | Sigmodontinae |
| (unranked): | Oryzomyalia |
| Tribe: |
Oryzomyini Vorontzov, 1959 |
| Type genus | |
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Oryzomys Baird, 1858 |
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| Genera | |
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| Diversity | |
| About 120 species in about 30 genera | |
| Synonyms | |
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Oryzomyini, or rice rat, is a tribe of rodents in the subfamily Sigmodontinae of family Cricetidae. It includes about 120 species in about thirty genera, distributed from the eastern United States to the southernmost parts of South America, including many offshore islands. It is part of the clade Oryzomyalia, which includes most of the South American Sigmodontinae.
The name Oryzomyini derives from that of its type genus, Oryzomys, which means "rice rat" or "rice mouse". Many species are also known as rice rats.
An oryzomyine group was first envisaged by Oldfield Thomas in the early 20th century. He defined it to include pentalophodont species, which have a mesoloph(id) on the upper and lower molars, with a long palate (extending past the third molars). Thomas included Oligoryzomys, Oecomys, and Oryzomys (which included many species now in other genera), as well as Rhagomys, which is currently classified in the related tribe Thomasomyini instead. In 1944, Hershkovitz proposed a more extended definition of the group, excluding Rhagomys, but including Nectomys (then including Sigmodontomys), Neacomys, and Scolomys. Some subsequent authors did not separate the oryzomyines from the thomasomyines, which were distinguished from them by having a short palate, including Vorontsov, who in 1959 was the first to use Oryzomyini as a formal family-group name. He included most current oryzomyines as well as the thomasomyines and tylomyines, which are now known to be more distantly related.
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