On today’s show we learn about the Bahamian Hutia, a critically endangered mammal, a rodent, native to the Bahamas archipelago in the Caribbean region, in the Atlantic Ocean. Its scientific name is Geocapromys ingrahami and it was first described in 1891.
For more information about Bahamian Hutia conservation, please see the Bahamas National Trust at https://bnt.bs/.
Rough Transcript
Intro 00:05
Welcome to Bad at Goodbyes.
On today’s show we consider the Bahamas Hutia.
Species Information 02:05
The Bahamian Hutia is a critically endangered mammal, a rodent, native to the Bahamas archipelago in the Caribbean region, in the Atlantic Ocean. Its scientific name is Geocapromys ingrahami and it was first described in 1891.
Description
The Bahamian Hutia is a small to medium sized rodent, weighing about one and a half pounds, and measuring about a foot in body length with a short two inch tail. They are covered in a fine, soft, fur ranging in color from grayish, brownish, reddish, to black. Their undersides are paler, a creamy tan color.
They look like perhaps a mix between a gerbil and a large mouse with a compact, study, somewhat rounded body. They move low to the ground, with four short strong limbs each with five toed feet, the digits ending in sharp curved claws. The hindlimbs are longer and stronger than the forelimbs, and they’ll sit upright, on their baskside and hindlimbs. Their forelimbs are particularly dexterous, adept at manipulating food. The soles of their feet are rough fleshly pads; for traction in navigating uneven and slippery surfaces.
They have a squat rounded muzzle, with large dark eyes, small arched ears, and fine whiskers at the end of their snout.
Behavior
The Bahamian Hutia is nocturnal, emerging and active from dusk until midmorning, roughly 10am. And then daytime is spent at rest in small caves, in crevices, or sheltered under leaf litter or in dense vegetation. This behavior, remaining inactive during the sunlit hours, is to minimize heat stress during the hottest parts of the day, as opposed to predator avoidance. In fact, in its native habitat, the Bahamian Hutia does not have any natural predators.
Lack of predator threat may in part explain their generally gregarious social behavior. Bahamian Hutia live in highly dense colonies, sharing feed sites and their caves and hollows, with very rare aggressive altercation. Colonies have been observed to have high site fidelity, groups repeatedly returning to the same locations, but low territoriality. They do not defend their territory with threatening behavior or violence. Even interactions between different colonies, who may have overlapping home ranges, are peaceful. Distinct colonies will feed in the same area without altercation. And within the colonies, there do not seem to be hierarchies of dominance, like divisions of leader and follower. In their restricted habitat (they live on a very small island), the hutia have adopted cooperative and tolerant behaviors, as opposed to competitive, violent behaviors.
This social cohesion is maintained through a variety of communication strategies. Researchers describe “nearly constant” soft vocalizations; chirps, whistles, low grunts, and quiet chortles when the hutia forage together. Physical touch is frequent, so mutual grooming, and playful (non-aggressive) wrestling are used to maintain social bonds. And olfactory communication. The Bahamian Hutia scent-mark locations with their urine, but unlike many mammals that use scent as a warning or to define territorial boundaries, the hutia employ this olfactory signaling to recognize group members and demarcate communal spaces.
Reproduction
Colonies consist of multiple intergenerational family units, and the Bahamian Hutia form long-term and possibly lifelong pair bonds. Mating takes place through-out the year, there does not seem to be a peak mating season. After mating mothers gestate their young for 4-5 months, and generally give birth to a single offspring. The pups are born precocial, already covered in fur, with eyes open, able to consume solid food within a day or two and only nurse for about two months. That said, the young stay with their family group for two plus years, learning to forage, developing their communication skills, and integrating into the social structure.
We have some evidence of communal rearing and caretaking. Researchers describe a scenario in which they captured a young hutia to tag and track it. Throughout, the pup vocalized a distress call, a sharp squeak, which drew a crowd of adult hutia, more individuals than would be in a single family group, so these are other unrelated adults drawn to the research site; the adults gathering and vocalizing in defensive response, until the pup was safely released.
Pups reach reproductive maturity at two years of age. And Bahamian Hutia have an average lifespan of roughly 6 years in the wild, though have been documented living as long as 9 years in captivity.
In The Dream
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In the dream,
A dream for my species,
May we, humankind, share our territories without threat or violence.
May we act peaceably, when our home ranges overlap.
May we disband hierarchies of dominance.
May we reject territoriality.
May we adopt cooperation and tolerance not competition and brutality.
May we gather to protect our young,
And the young of our neighbors.
In the dream.
————
Diet
The Bahamian Hutia are herbivores, foraging for leaves, shoots, fruit, nuts, and bark. Their diet includes more than 40 plant species, including Wild Dilly, Pigeon Plum, Prickly-Ash, Sea Lavender, and Sweet Potato. Though foraging mainly on the ground, they will stand on their hindlimbs to reach leaves and even climb small distances up into shrubs and trees to reach fruits, bark, and new shoots at the tips of higher branches.
The Bahamian Hutia have specialized adaptations for their very dry environment. They have a much lower metabolic rate as compared to other rodent of similar size, and can regulate their metabolism, slowing it down when water is scarce. In general they are able to meet their drinking water needs entirely through feeding, making efficient use of the water content in the vegetation they consume. They are even able to survive drinking salt water for up to about a week. These are vital adaptations for their arid habitat.
Habitat
The Bahamian Hutia is native the Caribbean region, to the Bahamas, to East Plana Cay, a limestone and coral island near the southeast tip of the Bahamas archipelago. East Plana Cay is roughly five miles long and a quartermile wide, a total area of roughly one and half square miles. It is remote; a thin strip of relatively barren, low-lying stone, with 20 plus miles across the open Atlantic to the nearest island.
The landscape is desolate, a thin layer of sandy soil covers rough weathered slabs of limestone, pocked with fissures, craters, crevasses, and small caves.
Vegetation is salt-tolerant and drought-resistant, adapted for this semi-arid environment of nutrient-poor soil, high winds and salt spray: low growing shrubs, cactus, sparse stands of short palm and small buttonwood trees. The only fresh water is temporary, collected in craters and crevasses after rainfall.
The climate is subtropical and relatively consistent, year-round. Temps average in the upper 70°s F across the year with summer highs cresting in the low 90s°F and winter lows falling to the mid 60s°F. Annual rainfall is fairly low, averaging about 35 inches per year, falling in short, infrequent bursts, quick storms as weather systems pass through to the wider ocean.
There are few other animal on the island. The only other inhabitants are bats, lizards, and seabirds who will visit though few nest there. Importantly there is no, nor has there even been regular human settlement on the island.
The Bahamian Hutia shares its island home with:
Seven-Year Apple, Southern Bahamas Anole, White-Tailed Tropicbird, Silver Thatch Palm, Wild Papaya, Audubon’s Shearwater, Sea Oats, East Plana Curlytail, Bridled Tern, Buttonwood, Hog-Cabbage Palm, Sooty Tern, Wild Dilly, Firebrush, Florida Privet, Railroad Vine, American Flamingo, Golden Creeper, Swordbush, Central Bahamas Geckolet, Seagrape, Great Blue Heron, Coastal Ragweed, Pigeon Plum, Bay Cedar, Osprey, and many, many more.
Threats
Once widespread all across the Bahamas, the fossil record shows significant decline in the Bahamian Hutia population upon the arrival of European colonizers in the 1500s and 1600s. Specifically, due to habitat destruction: land clearance for agriculture. And additionally the invasive introduction of European mammals, rats, mice, cats, and dogs impacted Hutia populations across the archipelago. Two subspecies, the Great Abaco Hutia and the Crooked Island Hutia, were driven to extinction roughly three to four hundred years ago.
In fact our Bahamian Hutia was believed to be extinct until the 1960s when the population on East Plana Cay was rediscovered. Their remote uninhabited location, crucial to their continued survival.
Today, the species is threatened by stochastic events, unpredictable occurrences, like a particularly severe hurricane which could devastate the remaining population in a single catastrophic occurrence. And by anthropogenic climate change. Human-induced climate change resulting from persistent overreliance on fossil fuel burning is resulting in sea level rise that is and will increasingly affect the Bahaman Cays. The low-lying islands are threatened by saltwater intrusion which would inundate the freshwater vegetation that the Bahamian Hutia feeds upon. And climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather, increasing the likelihood of stochastic events.
Conservation
Fortunately, the Bahamian Hutia has been legally protected by the Bahaman Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries since the 1960s. In the late 60s a translocation program introduced the species to two other remote island with similar habitats within the protected Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, on Warderick Wells Cay and Little Wax Cay. Though as of 2011, few, if any, of the Little Wax Cay population remain.
In 2018, a small captive breeding population was established at the Ardastra Gardens Zoo & Conservation Centre in Nassau, Bahamas to secure a stable, genetically diverse population for conservation research and public education.
Most recently, a 2025 research project is studying the feasibility of additional local breeding and reintroduction programs.
Nevertheless the Bahamian Hutia has been considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2024 and their population is currently in decline.
Our most recent counts, which are very rough, and some of which are 40-plus years old, estimate that less than 15000 Bahamian Hutia remain in the wild.
Citations 26:25
Information for today’s show about the Bahamas Hutia was compiled from:
Allen, J.A. 1891-08-31. Description of a new species of Capromys from the Plana Keys, Bahamas. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 3(23):329-336. – https://hdl.handle.net/2246/839
Campbell, D. G., Lowell, K. S., Lightbourn, M. E. 1991. The effect of introduced Hutias (Geocapromys ingrahami) on the woody vegetation of Little Wax Cay, Bahamas. Conservation Biology 5: 536-541 - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.1991.tb00361.x
Cartwright, F.B., Davis, A., Kennerley, R. & Turvey, S.T. 2024. Geocapromys ingrahami. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2024: e.T9002A224590046. – https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2024-2.RLTS.T9002A224590046.en
Clough, Garrett C. 1973. “A Most Peaceable Rodent.” Natural History 82 (6): 66–74. – http://hdl.handle.net/2246/6480
Clough, Garrett C. “The Bahaman Hutia: A Rodent Refound.” Oryx 10, no. 2 (1969): 106–8. – https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605300007936
Clough, Garrett C. 1976. “Current Status of Two Endangered Caribbean Rodents.” Biological Conservation 10, no. 1 (July): 43–47. – https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-3207(76)90023-9
Jordan, Kevin Clark. 1989. “An Ecology of the Bahamian Hutia : Geocapromys Ingrahami”. Doctoral Dissertation; University of Florida. – https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/207298
Knowles, Lindy, and Casuarina McKinney-Lambert. 2013. Southeastern Bahamas Coral Reef & Island Survey: Rapid Ecological Assessment Report. Nassau: Bahamas National Trust & BREEF. – https://www.agrra.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/SE-Bahamas-Coral-Reef-and-Island-Survey-Final-REA-Report-9-24-13.pdf
Kennerley, Ros. 2024. “Safeguarding the Future of Critically Endangered Bahaman Hutia Within the Bahaman Archipelago Through Evidenced Based Management.” Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund. December 23, 2024. - https://www.speciesconservation.org/small-grant/bahamian-hutia/36130
LeFebvre MJ, deFrance SD, Kamenov GD, Keegan WF, Krigbaum J (2019) The zooarchaeology and isotopic ecology of the Bahamian hutia (Geocapromys ingrahami): Evidence for pre-Columbian anthropogenic management. PLoS ONE 14(9): e0220284. – https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220284
LeFebvre, Michelle, Geoffrey Duchemin, Susan deFrance, William Keegan, and Kristen Walczesky. 2018. “Bahamian Hutia (Geocapromys Ingrahami) in the Lucayan Realm: Pre-Columbian Exploitation and Translocation.” Environmental Archaeology 24, no. 2 (August): 171–87. – https://doi.org/10.1080/14614103.2018.1503809
Oswald, J.A., Allen, J.M., LeFebvre, M.J. et al. Ancient DNA and high-resolution chronometry reveal a long-term human role in the historical diversity and biogeography of the Bahamian hutia. Scientific Reports v 10, 1373 (2020). – https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58224-y
Rebach, Judith A. Osborn, “Comparison of the Gas Exchange and Water Balance of the Nutria, Myocastorcoypus, and the Hutia, Geocapromys Ingrahami“ (1971). Open Access Dissertations. Paper 2617. University of Rhode Island. – https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss/2617
Turvey, Samuel T., Rosalind J. Kennerley, Jose M. Nuñez-Miño, and Richard P. Young. 2017. “The Last Survivors: Current Status and Conservation of the Non-Volant Land Mammals of the Insular Caribbean.” Journal of Mammalogy 98, no. 4 (August): 918–36. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmammal/gyw154
Wilson, Don E., Thomas E. Lacher Jr., and Russell A. Mittermeier. 2016. “Geocapromys Ingrahami.” In Handbook of the Mammals of the World – Volume 6: Lagomorphs and Rodents I, 552–604. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. – https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6624107
For more information about Bahamian Hutia conservation, please see the Bahamas National Trust at https://bnt.bs/explore/exuma/exuma-cays-land-sea-park/
Music 28:32
Pledge 33:34
I honor the lifeforce of the Bahamas Hutia. I will commit its name to my record. I am grateful to have shared time on our planet with this being. I lament the ways in which I and my species have harmed and diminished this species. I grieve.
And so, in the name of the Bahamas Hutia I pledge to reduce my consumption. And my carbon footprint. And curb my wastefulness. I pledge to acknowledge and attempt to address the costs of my actions and inactions. And I pledge to resist the harm of plant and animal kin and their habitat, by individuals, corporations, and governments.
I forever pledge my song to the witness and memory of all life, to a broad celebration of biodiversity, and to the total liberation of all beings.
