Volta and Niger rivers but makes a unique barking call that is distinct from the shrieking vocalizations of hyraxes inhabiting other regions of the African forest zone. Human interactions Local and indigenous names Arabic: () Gikuyu: Gitori Hebrew: () Tigrinya: () Biblical references References are made to hyraxes in the Hebrew Bible (; ; ; ). In Leviticus they are described as lacking a split hoof and therefore not being kosher. It also describes the hyrax as chewing its cud; this is inaccurate as the hyrax does not regurgitate its food to chew it again. The Hebrew phrase in question (מַעֲלֵה גֵרָה) means "bringing up cud". Some of the modern translations refer to them as rock hyraxes. The words "rabbit", "hare", "coney", or "daman" appear as terms for the hyrax in some English translations of the Bible. Early English translators had no knowledge of the hyrax, so no name for them, though "badger" or "rock-badger" has also been used more recently in new translations, especially in "common language" translations such as the Common English Bible (2011). "Spain" One of the proposed etymologies for "Spain" is that it may be a derivation of the Phoenician I-Shpania, meaning "island of hyraxes", "land of hyraxes", but the Phoenecian-speaking Carthaginians are believed to have used this name to refer to rabbits, animals with which they were unfamiliar. Roman coins struck in the region from the reign of Hadrian show a female figure with a rabbit at her feet, and Strabo called it the "land of the rabbits". The Phoeneician shpania is cognate to the modern Hebrew shafan. See also Altungulata References External links Fauna of Sub-Saharan Africa Articles containing video clips Extant Ypresian first appearances Taxa named by Thomas Henry Huxley