I've never seen a hutia or a solenodon, but I know hutias are large animals for rodents. But I also thought solenodons were large. What sort of sizes are these specimens (say, inrelation to a well-known sort of animal like guineapigs or rabbits)?
The solenodon I'd say was the size of perhaps 1.5 black rats
The hutia was roughly the size of a stout (with the hutia having a little less length though) Flemmish Giant Rabbit
The only hutia I've seen in real life however was about the size of a small North American Porcupine
There are 13 species of hutias in cuba of diverse sizes. the largest one is the jutia conga capromys pilarides which is shown here. i saw them at the havana zoo and various zoos in Europe have them,often labed as cuban hutia. but as i mentioned there are actually 13 species of hutias or jutias on the island. here is video on a breeder of jutia conga or cuban hutia where you can see the size of these rodents.
thanks Carlos (and savethelephant), that's about the size I had in my head for the hutias. Have you seen a solenodon? I thought they were much bigger than the museum specimen here.
here is a very nice video on the conservation work by zoologico nacional de santo domingo and durrell zoo on saving jutias and solenodon on that island. the solenodon on santo domingo do seem to be larger than the cuban ones. i saw a mounted solenodon at the museo de historia natural in havana that was about the size of the amnh specimen.
