spiny rat

plural spiny rats

1. Any of certain caviomorph rodents of the family Echimyidae of Neotropical spiny rats, especially of genus Proechimys, that resemble rats and have stiff, pointed hairs, or spines.

   Spiny rats, Proechimys semispinosus, are rodents weighing up to 500 g which eat fruits and seeds that have fallen to the forest floor. In Lutz catchment, a spiny rat's territory is three-fifths as wide as an agouti's (Smythe et al. 1982).

   1999, Egbert Giles Leigh Jr., Tropical Forest Ecology : A View from Barro Colorado Island, page 28

   1 more example

   Members of the important Neotropical family Echimyidae, which includes a viety of roughly rat-sized rodents, are called spiny rats.[…]Spiny rats are widely distributed in the Neotropics, occurring from Nicaragua southward through the northern half of South America to Paraguay and south-eastern Brazil.

   2011, Terry A. Vaughan, James M. Ryan, Nicholas J. Czaplewski, Mammalogy, page 232

   Synonyms: hedgehog rat, porcupine rat

2. Any of certain genera of family Muridae of rodents:
   1. Any member of two species of genus Rattus.
   2. Any member of the species of genus Maxomys (sometimes considered a subgenus of Rattus).
   3. A Ryukyu spiny rats (Tokudaia).
   4. A Sulawesi spiny rats (Echiothrix).