GENERAL DISTRIBUTION. __________________________________/\__________________________________ / \ NEOTROPICAL| NEARCTIC |PALÆARCTIC | ETHIOPIAN | ORIENTAL | AUSTRALIAN SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS. -----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+------------ | | | | | -- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- 2. -- --|1. 2. 3 -- |-- -- -- --|-- -- -- -- | | | | | The genus _Hyrax_, which alone constitutes this family, consists of small animals having the appearance of hares or marmots, but which more resemble the genus _Rhinoceros_ in their teeth and skeleton. They range all over the Ethiopian region, except Madagascar; a peculiar species is found in Fernando Po, and they just enter the Palæarctic as far as Syria. They may therefore be considered as an exclusively Ethiopian group. In Dr. Gray's {229}last Catalogue (1873) he divides the genus into three--_Hyrax_, _Euhyrax_ and _Dendrohyrax_--the latter consisting of two species confined apparently to West and South Africa. No extinct forms of this family have yet been discovered; the _Hyracotherium_ of the London clay (Lower Eocene) which was supposed to resemble _Hyrax_, is now believed to be an ancestral type of the Suidæ or swine. _Order X.--RODENTIA._ FAMILY 55.--MURIDÆ. (37 Genera, 330 Species.) GENERAL DISTRIBUTION. __________________________________/\__________________________________ / \ NEOTROPICAL| NEARCTIC |PALÆARCTIC | ETHIOPIAN | ORIENTAL | AUSTRALIAN SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS. -----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+------------ | | | | | 1. 2. 3. 4 |1. 2. 3. 4 |1. 2. 3. 4 |1. 2. 3. 4 |1. 2. 3. 4 |-- 2 -- -- | | | | |