Soricomorphs of the Caribbean

The Caribbean region is home to two unique families of the mammalian order Eulipotyphla (incorporating the now defunct order Soricomorpha), which also includes the hedgehogs, gymnures shrews, moles and desmans. Only one Caribbean family, that of the solenodons, is still extant; the other, Nesophontidae, became extinct within the last few centuries.

For the purposes of this article, the "Caribbean" includes all islands in the Caribbean Sea (except for small islets close to the 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.

About fifteen species of Caribbean eulipotyphlans are known to have existed during the Quaternary, but not all Nesophontes species are universally accepted as valid. However, most of these, including all Nesophontes, are now extinct, and the two surviving solenodons are classified as "endangered".

The interrelationships of the two Caribbean genera remain unclear. Similarities in skull morphology have led some to propose close affinities between the two, but differences in characters of the teeth are evidence against a close relationship. DNA evidence suggests that Solenodon is sister to a clade of shrews, moles, and erinaceids, with a molecular clock providing evidence that the split from the other families occurred in the Cretaceous period, late in the Mesozoic era. How they came to the Antilles is unknown; they may have arrived either via overwater dispersal or via some sort of land bridge from North America, South America, or even Africa, and Nesophontes and Solenodon may have different origins.

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