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Animals That Look Like a Large Rat Ny

Allegheny Woodrat

Scientific Proper name: Neotoma magister

New York Status: Endangered
Federal Status: Not Listed

Description

Drawing of Allegheny Woodrat

The Allegheny woodrat is the second largest member of the native North American rats and mice (subfamily Sigmodontinae), weighs up to a pound, and is roughly the size of a grey squirrel. Allegheny woodrats measure approximately sixteen inches long, half of which is its tail. The majority of its body is brownish-gray in color, while the undersides and feet are white. Woodrats have big eyes, naked ears and long vibrissie (whiskers) which when pulled back will achieve the shoulder. The most visible characteristic which sets the Allegheny woodrat apart from Old Earth rats is its tail. The tails of European rats are naked or slightly hairy with the peel conspicuously visible beneath. The tail of the Allegheny woodrat is completely covered with hairs approximately one-third of an inch long and is prominently bicolored; nearly black in a higher place and white below.

Allegheny woodrats take an agreeable disposition around people and are generally docile when handled. They've fifty-fifty been observed trying to remove buttons from a person's shirt and drag abroad the blanket of a sleeping camper! All the same, woodrats can exist very violent around their own kind. Many sport battle scars from unwelcome encounters and can be killed if escape is not possible.

Life History

Woodrats are generally nocturnal. They scurry almost in sparsely vegetated areas of boulders and crevices, making use of bare travel ways and labyrinths to travel silently and deeply throughout their domain. They are mainly vegetarians and feed on a wide diverseness of fruits, nuts, berries, and green plant material. They lay in stores of dried light-green vegetation under protective cover of ledges. Red oak acorns seem particularly desirable when they are available. In the course of normal activeness woodrats rarely travel more than a few hundred anxiety from the center of their territory, although dispersing animals can travel miles before finding a new home. They regularly patrol the borders of their territories and are well enlightened of the activities of their neighbors. Compared to other rodents, woodrats are non prolific breeders averaging one to three offspring per litter. Nether platonic conditions they tin produce three litters annually in nests of finely shredded bark. The immature are born after a gestation menstruation of xxx to 37 days and are weaned inside a month. Woodrats have been known to survive for most 3 years in the wild and considerably longer in captivity.

Distribution and Habitat

Quick retreat appears to be the preferred defensive strategy equally they tend to build nests in well protected sites with multiple avenues of escape. In some instances researchers have found dried leaves placed around the nest on probable approach routes that appear to human action equally alarms to warn the residents of approaching danger. Like their western counterparts, which are often called pack rats, the Allegheny woodrat often collects environmental oddities to decorate their nest site. It is non unusual to detect $.25 of bones, human rubbish, or fifty-fifty animal carrion within and around the nest site.

The Allegheny woodrat has a long history in New York. Researchers take found woodrat basic over 20,000 years sometime as far north in the Hudson river valley as Albany. In historical times, records of woodrats have been restricted to accumulations of big talus boulders throughout the Hudson Highlands and Shawangunk mountains of southeastern New York, east to the Hudson River and south to the New Bailiwick of jersey border.

Status

As recently as the mid 1960s the woodrat could be institute wherever these large boulders accumulated in layers deep enough to form complex systems of passageways. Past the mid 1970s naturalist Dan Smiley of Mohonk, New York was the first to observe that the Allegheny woodrat was in decline in the state. By 1980, biologists knew of only five extant sites, the last of which became extirpated in 1987.

Efforts to understand the cause of the decline began in 1990 when December biologists captured thirty woodrats that had been captured in West Virginia, fitted with radio collars, and released near Mohonk, New York at two formerly occupied sites. Within six months all of the animals at one site had perished; within a twelvemonth the remaining animals were gone. Including offspring, biologists monitored 52 animals of which only twelve carcasses were recovered in skilful status for examination. In 11 of 12 cases the animate being had been killed by a parasite chosen raccoon roundworm (Balyisascaris procyonis). The eggs of the parasite are independent within raccoon carrion and contaminate the soil when the feces decompose. Woodrats walking across raccoon debris are probably infected when they groom or when they conduct feces to their nest sites. Raccoons are often attracted to the aforementioned rocky sites as woodrats; therefore, an increment in raccoon numbers puts woodrats at neat risk of infection. When coupled with the woodrat's "pack rat" behavior of collecting feces, the increase in raccoon numbers that we take experienced in recent decades has spelled doom for the woodrat in New York.

Management and Enquiry Needs

For perhaps the first fourth dimension in thousands of years the Allegheny woodrat no longer haunts the cliffs of southeastern New York. Their hazard of returning appears dour at this time every bit information technology would seem to require a substantial and long term decline in raccoon numbers.

Given the ability of raccoons to thrive near human development, the time to come of the Allegheny woodrat in New York is bleak. Inquiry in areas where the animals still be, or perhaps further experimental inquiry in New York, might shed additional light on the woodrat'due south issues, but nosotros currently do not encounter solutions on the horizon.