agouti

agouti , name applied to rabbit-sized rodents of the genus Dasyprocta, found in Central and South America and in the West Indies. They have slender limbs with five front and three hind toes, rudimentary tails, and coarse rough hair that varies from reddish to dark brown depending upon the species. Agoutis are forest dwellers; they eat fruits, leaves, roots, nuts, and sugarcane. They are good swimmers and fast runners. Agouti is occasionally used instead of Cuniculus as the generic name of the related paca, or spotted cavy . Agoutis are classified in the phylum Chordata , subphylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia, order Rodentia, family Dasyproctidae.

agouti A type of hair pigmentation in which there are alternate bands of the two forms of melanin. This kind of banded hair is well exemplified by the agouti (see DASYPROCTIDAE), hence the name.

agouti In mammals, the hair colour produced when each hair consists of alternate eumelanic and phaeomelanic bands. According to the theory of metachromism, agouti is the evolutionarily primitive mammalian hair colour. The pattern is named after the agouti (Dasyprocta aguti), a South American rodent with hair banded in this way.