structural:summarization, information:classification, linguistic:translation
Standard classification

The use of the order name "Rodentia" is attributed to the English traveler and naturalist Thomas Edward Bowdich (1821). The Modern Latin word Rodentia is derived from rodens, present participle of rodere – "to gnaw", "eat away". The hares, rabbits and pikas (order Lagomorpha) have continuously growing incisors, as do rodents, and were at one time included in the order. However, they have an additional pair of incisors in the upper jaw and the two orders have quite separate evolutionary histories. The phylogeny of the rodents places them in the clades Glires, Euarchontoglires and Boreoeutheria. The cladogram below shows the inner and outer relations of Rodentia based on a 2012 attempt by Wu et al. to align the molecular clock with paleontological data:

The living rodent families based on the study done by Fabre et al. 2012.

The order Rodentia may be divided into suborders, infraorders, superfamilies and families. There is a great deal of parallelism and convergence among rodents caused by the fact that they have tended to evolve to fill largely similar niches. This parallel evolution includes not only the structure of the teeth, but also the infraorbital region of the skull (below the eye socket) and makes classification difficult as similar traits may not be due to common ancestry. Brandt (1855) was the first to propose dividing Rodentia into three suborders, Sciuromorpha, Hystricomorpha and Myomorpha, based on the development of certain muscles in the jaw and this system was widely accepted. Schlosser (1884) performed a comprehensive review of rodent fossils, mainly using the cheek teeth, and found that they fitted into the classical system, but Tullborg (1899) proposed just two sub-orders, Sciurognathi and Hystricognathi. These were based on the degree of inflection of the lower jaw and were to be further subdivided into Sciuromorpha, Myomorpha, Hystricomorpha and Bathyergomorpha. Matthew (1910) created a phylogenetic tree of New World rodents but did not include the more problematic Old World species. Further attempts at classification continued without agreement, with some authors adopting the classical three suborder system and others Tullborg's two suborders.

These disagreements remain unresolved, nor have molecular studies fully resolved the situation though they have confirmed the monophyly of the group and that the clade has descended from a common Paleocene ancestor. Carleton and Musser (2005) in Mammal Species of the World have provisionally adopted a five suborder system: Sciuromorpha, Castorimorpha, Myomorpha, Anomaluromorpha, and Hystricomorpha. As of 2021 the American Society of Mammalogists recognizes 34 recent families containing more than 481 genera and 2277 species.

Order Rodentia (from Latin, rodere, to gnaw)