Paca

A paca (from Tupí paka) is a member of the genus Cuniculus of ground-dwelling, herbivorous rodents in South and Central America. It is the only genus in the family Cuniculidae. Pacas are large rodents with dots and stripes on their sides, short ears, and barely visible tails. Pacas are eaten by people in Belize, where they are known as "gibnut" and, having been served to Queen Elizabeth II, "the royal rat". In the Amazon basin they are known as "majás". In Guyanese English, it is known as labba from Arawak.

This article is about the Central and South American rodent. For other uses, see PACA (disambiguation).

Paca
Lowland paca
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Infraorder: Hystricognathi
Parvorder: Caviomorpha
Superfamily: Cavioidea
Family: Cuniculidae
Miller & Gidley, 1918
Genus: Cuniculus
Brisson, 1762
Type species
Mus paca
Species

Cuniculus paca
Cuniculus taczanowskii
Cuniculus hernandezi

Synonyms

For Cuniculidae:

  • Agoutidae Gray, 1821
  • Coelogenyidae Gervais, 1849

For Cuniculus:

  • Agouti Lacépède, 1799
  • Caelogenus Fleming, 1822
  • Caelogenys Agassiz, 1842
  • Coelogenus Cuvier, 1807
  • Coelogenys Illiger, 1811
  • Mamcoelogenysus Herrera, 1899
  • Osteopera Harlan, 1825
  • Paca Fischer, 1814
  • Stictomys Thomas, 1924
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.