Cuban Hutia
The Cuban hutia (Capromys pilorides), also known as Desmarest's hutia, is a stocky rodent found only in Cuba, Isla de la Juventud and the many keys around them. It is the largest living hutia and the largest native land mammal of Cuba, reaching up to 8.5 kg. Its coarse fur varies from grayish brown to reddish and almost black, and it has a blunt muzzle, small ears and a thick, sparsely haired tail. It lives in forests, mangroves, rocky hillsides and caves, from sea level inland, and shelters in tree hollows, rock crevices and caves rather than digging burrows. It feeds mainly on leaves, bark, fruits and stems, and its stomach is split into three chambers, one of the most complex of any rodent. It forages mostly from late afternoon through the night and climbs trees with ease. Cuban hutias usually live in pairs or small family groups. The IUCN lists the species as Least Concern, but its population is decreasing because of hunting, farming, mining and introduced dogs and cats.
What is a hutia? Meet Desmarest's hutia of Cuba
A hutia is a medium to large rodent from a family, the Capromyidae, that lives only on islands of the Caribbean. The name comes from the Taíno language, spoken by the people who lived in Cuba and the Bahamas before Europeans arrived. Although people often compare it to a giant rat, the hutia is not a rat at all. Its closest relatives are South American rodents such as guinea pigs, chinchillas and coypus. Many hutia species disappeared after people reached the Caribbean, and most of the ones left today are threatened. The Cuban hutia, also called Desmarest's hutia after the French zoologist Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest, is the big exception: it is still common across much of Cuba. In Cuba people call it jutía conga, and it is the largest of all living hutias. Other hutias survive on Hispaniola, Jamaica and a few cays of the Bahamas, where the Bahamian hutia is a separate and much rarer species. A genetic study published in 2024 in the Journal of Mammalogy found that the Cuban hutia may in fact be two species, one in eastern Cuba and one in the west, split for about 1.75 million years. The IUCN still treats it as a single species, and this page follows that.
How big is a Cuban hutia?
The Cuban hutia is about the size of a small dog or a large cat, and much heavier than it looks at first. Its head and body measure 31 to 60 centimeters (12 to 24 inches), plus a tail of 14 to 29 centimeters (6 to 11 inches). Adults weigh from 2.8 to 8.5 kilograms (6 to 19 pounds), which makes it the heaviest of all living hutias and the largest native land mammal in Cuba. The body is round and heavy, the legs are short and strong, and the feet end in curved claws that grip bark and rock when it climbs. The muzzle is blunt, the ears are small and rounded, and the eyes are small and dark. Its fur is long and coarse. Color changes a lot from place to place: most hutias are grayish brown or reddish brown, often with a paler face, but some populations on the northern cays are almost black. Inside, the Cuban hutia has a surprise. Its stomach is divided into three chambers by folds of the gut, one of the most complex stomachs known in any rodent, which helps it break down tough leaves and bark.
Where does the Cuban hutia live?
The Cuban hutia lives only in Cuba and nowhere else in the world. Its range covers the main island, Isla de la Juventud and many of the small keys along the Cuban coast, including the cays of the Sabana and Camagüey archipelago in the north. Scientists recognize several subspecies, partly because populations on separate islands have been cut off from each other for a long time. A sixth form, which lived in the Cayman Islands, is already extinct. Across this range the Cuban hutia uses a wide mix of places: forests, mangroves, coastal scrub, rocky hillsides and caves, from sea level well into the interior. It does not dig burrows. Instead it shelters in tree hollows, among roots, in deep rock crevices and in the holes and caves of limestone. A study with GPS collars in southeastern Cuba found that hutias rarely move far from tree cover. Where they are not hunted they can be very common: at the Guantánamo Bay naval base, a study from 2001 to 2003 counted 1 to 5 hutias per hectare even in areas where they were being controlled. Elsewhere in southeastern Cuba, counts on foot gave about one hutia per hectare.
What does the Cuban hutia eat?
The Cuban hutia is almost entirely a plant eater. Leaves make up a large part of its daily food, along with bark stripped from branches, fruits, stems, shoots and roots. It climbs into shrubs and trees to reach fresh leaves and fruit, and it also feeds on the ground. When food is scarce, it gnaws through tough woody stems to reach the softer tissue inside, using strong incisors that keep growing all its life. Much of what it eats is full of water, so it can go a long time without drinking. Digesting so many leaves and so much bark is hard work, and this is where its three chambered stomach helps: food stays longer in the gut, where microbes break down the plant fibers. Hutias have also been reported to eat small animals such as lizards now and then, but these are occasional extras and not a regular part of the diet. Their taste for plants is what puts them in trouble with people. Around farms and gardens hutias sometimes eat crops, and at the Guantánamo Bay naval base they damage landscaping and native plants and even chew through electric cables.
Is the Cuban hutia nocturnal? How it lives
The Cuban hutia does most of its foraging from late afternoon through the night. In a GPS study in southeastern Cuba, collared hutias stayed hidden near tree cover by day and came out at night to feed. During the hottest hours they rest in a tree hollow, a rock crevice or a cave. Where they feel safe, as on the Guantánamo Bay naval base, they can also be seen moving around in daylight. Although the Cuban hutia looks heavy, it is a good climber. Strong claws let it move up trunks and along branches to reach leaves and fruit, and it often rests in trees. It also spends a lot of time on the ground. Cuban hutias usually live in pairs or small family groups, not in large colonies, and each group keeps to a fairly small home area that it knows well. When something frightens it, a hutia usually freezes first and then hurries to the nearest cover instead of trying to fight. Its enemies include large native snakes, such as boas, and birds of prey, along with dogs and cats brought by people. Dogs and cats are now among its main threats in many parts of Cuba.
Cuban hutia babies
Cuban hutias can breed at any time of year. Pregnancy is long for a rodent: about 120 to 126 days, or roughly four months, which is longer than in many animals of a similar size. Litters are small, with one to three young, and two is a common number. What the babies lack in number they make up for in development. Newborn hutias weigh around 240 grams (about half a pound), and they arrive fully furred, with their eyes open and able to walk within hours of birth. This is very different from rats and mice, whose young are born naked, blind and helpless. Because the babies are so developed, they can follow their mother almost from the start and begin nibbling plants early, although they keep nursing for weeks. Young hutias usually stay with the family group for a while after they are weaned. Having few young but giving each one a strong start is a pattern shared by many of the hutia's South American relatives, such as guinea pigs. In zoos, Cuban hutias breed well, and several European zoos have raised litters. In captivity they usually live 8 to 11 years, and the oldest known hutia reached about 14.
Hutias as food and the banana rats of Guantánamo
People and hutias have shared Cuba for thousands of years. Hutia bones are common in the remains left by the Taíno and earlier peoples, who hunted them for food, and the tradition never ended. In the Cuban countryside, jutía is still eaten, and many families see it as a special dish. That demand has a cost. Poaching for meat is one of the main pressures on hutias in coastal mangroves and keys, where fishermen catch them, and hutia meat is offered for sale on Cuban websites and social media. Cuban border guards have seized shipments of hutia meat together with crocodile parts. Researchers think hunting may be growing because of the country's economic crisis. On the Guantánamo Bay naval base the story is the opposite. Nobody hunts hutias there, food is easy to find and there are few predators, so the animals became very common. The Americans stationed on the base call them banana rats, a name that comes from their droppings, which look like tiny bananas. Hutias at the base chew cables and vehicle wiring and damage plants, and they have been controlled for years by shooting and trapping.
Is the Cuban hutia endangered?
No. The IUCN lists the Cuban hutia as Least Concern, in an assessment carried out in February 2020 and published in 2024. It is one of the few hutias that is still common and widespread, while most of its relatives in the Caribbean are threatened. But Least Concern does not mean everything is fine. The IUCN says its population is decreasing, and earlier versions of this page wrongly described it as stable. The main threats are hunting and trapping for meat, the loss of forest to farming and mining, and introduced animals, especially dogs and cats. Cuba lost about 402,000 hectares of forest between 2001 and 2023, according to Global Forest Watch, and 11 percent of that was primary forest. No one has counted the total number of Cuban hutias, and scientists say more field data are needed to know how fast it is declining. The IUCN notes that protected areas exist across its whole range. If the Cuban hutia is formally split into an eastern and a western species, as the 2024 study suggests, each will be assessed on its own, and researchers expect both to remain Least Concern. They have even suggested the Cuban hutia as a candidate to bring back to the Cayman Islands, where its extinct close relative once lived.
