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Pack rats build complex houses or dens made of twigs, cactus joints, and other materials. These contain several nest chambers, food caches, and debris piles. Dens are often built in small caves or rocky crevices, but when close by human habitations, woodrats will opportunistically move into the attics and walls of houses.
When searching for food is dangerous or unproductive, animals often use food stores to supply all or part of their diet. This is a feasible strategy to avoid food shortage. It is the habit of collecting and storing both food and nonfood items that has earned the eastern woodrat is other common name of "pack-rat" or "trade rat". [17]
Finally, increased human encroachment causes fragmentation and destruction of the woodrats' habitat. [ 21 ] Though present for at least 20,000 years in New York State, the Allegheny woodrat was extirpated from New York by 1987, perhaps due to an increase in the state's raccoon population from the 1960s onward.
The bushy-tailed woodrat, or packrat (Neotoma cinerea) is a species of rodent in the family Cricetidae found in Canada and the United States. [2] Its natural habitats are boreal forests, temperate forests, dry savanna, temperate shrubland, and temperate grassland.
Nicknames include "packrats" or "trade rats" because of their tendency to hoard things, build large domed dens, and "trade" by dropping then picking up another object for it. Coyotes and other predators will attempt to prey on these rodents by laying waste to the dens, but the sheer volume of material is usually dissuasive. Occasionally, dusky ...
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Desert woodrats are relatively small for pack rats, measuring 28 to 39 cm (11 to 15 in) in length, including a 12 to 20 cm (4.7 to 7.9 in) tail. They weigh from 122 to 350 g (4.3 to 12.3 oz), with males being larger than females. Their coloring varies between individuals, and can be anything from pale gray to cinnamon to near-black.
Rats are bigger than most Old World mice, which are their relatives, but seldom weigh over 500 grams (17 + 1 ⁄ 2 oz) in the wild. [2] The term rat is also used in the names of other small mammals that are not true rats. Examples include the North American pack rats (aka wood rats [3]) and a number of species loosely called kangaroo rats. [3]