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Alleghany Wood Rat
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- Length
- 16.40 inches.
- Description
- Tail nearly as long as the body, ears prominent. Colour plumbeous above, sprinkled with black hairs and with a yellowish-brown undertone which is purer and brighter on the sides of the body becoming almost pink on the flanks. Feet and lower surface of the body pure white. Tail sharply bicoloured, dark plumbeous above and white below, closely haired so as to obscure the scales entirely. Some summer specimens are duller coloured with much less of the buff or pinkish tinge.
- Range
- From the Hudson highlands and northwestern New Jersey southward along the Alleghanies.
- Range
- Lower parts of the South Atlantic and Gulf States.
- Range
- Replaces the last in the lower Mississippi Valley and western Florida.
Rats and mice differ only in size and it does not follow that our American wild rats are closely related to the common house rat simply because both are big. On the contrary our wood rat finds a closer relative in the white-footed mouse of which he is in many ways simply a large edition.
House rats often wander into rather wild localities probably following the camps of engineers or lumbermen, and are not infrequently taken for wood rats. The latter, however, can always be told from his semi-domestic cousin by his hairy tail, softer fur and much larger ear, while his teeth are flat-topped somewhat like those of the meadow mice instead of having raised prominences or "tubercles."
The Alleghany wood rat inhabits wild rocky ledges along the mountains, where he can seek shelter among the loose piles of broken rocks or in the crevices and caves usually present in such localities. Here he gathers together a mass of sticks, shreds of bark leaves and other debris to serve for a nest, building them sometimes into a more regular dome-shaped structure. He seems to feed on whatever forage the forest offers, both vegetable and animal, and in large caves where foxes or wild cats have dragged their prey, the marks of the wood rat's teeth are found abundantly on the bones which the more powerful beasts have left behind.
Although manifestly a rat he seems to lack the offensive odour and repellent characters of the house rat, and his thick, soft fur recalls the pelage of the squirrels.
The closely related Florida wood rat is said to build its nest in dense swampy thickets but probably differs little in general habits from its more northern relative.
Varieties of the Wood Rat
1. Alleghany Wood Rat. Neotoma pennsylvanica Stone. Description and range as above.
2. Florida Wood Rat. N. floridana (Ord). Rather smaller and plumbeous, tail more scantily haired. Skull not nearly so heavy.
3. Mississippi Wood Rat. N. floridana rubida Bangs. Much brighter and decidedly reddish in colour.