Prehensile-tailed porcupine
| Prehensile-tailed porcupines Temporal range: Early Pleistocene to Recent | |
|---|---|
| Coendou prehensilis | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Rodentia |
| Family: | Erethizontidae |
| Subfamily: | Erethizontinae |
| Genus: | Coendou Lacépède, 1799 |
| Type species | |
| Hystrix prehensilis | |
| Species | |
|
See text | |
The prehensile-tailed porcupines or coendous (genus Coendou) are found in Central and South America. Two other formerly recognized Neotropical tree porcupine genera, Echinoprocta and Sphiggurus, have been subsumed into Coendou, since Sphiggurus was shown by genetic studies to be polyphyletic, while Echinoprocta nested within Coendou.