Erethizontidae Bonaparte, 1845

Velazco, Paúl M. & Patterson, Bruce D., 2019, Small Mammals Of The Mayo River Basin In Northern Peru, With The Description Of A New Species Of Sturnira (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae), Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2019 (429), pp. 1-69 : 52

Family Erethizontidae Bonaparte, 1845

The New World porcupines in the family Erethizontidae are medium-to-large sized nocturnal, arboreal, herbivorous rodents that have their bodies covered with spines used for defense ( Barthelmess, 2016). Currently, the family comprises 17 species that are grouped into three genera, two of these monotypic ( Chaetomys and Erethizon ) ( Voss, 2015; Barthelmess, 2016). The third, Coendou , contains most of the diversity and its species are distributed in Central and South America ( Barthelmess, 2016).