Description
The Allegheny woodrat is a medium-sized rodent almost indistinguishable from the closely related eastern woodrat, although slightly larger on average, and often with longer whiskers. Adults typically range from 31 to 45 centimetres (12 to 18 in) in total length, including a tail measuring 15 to 21 centimetres (5.9 to 8.3 in). Males weigh 357 grams (12.6 oz) on average, while females are slightly smaller, weighing an average of 337 grams (11.9 oz).
It is the second largest member of the native North American rats and can weigh up to a pound, roughly the size of an eastern gray squirrel.
The fur is long, soft, and brownish-gray or cinnamon in color, while the undersides and feet are white. They have large eyes, and naked ears. Their most distinguishing feature is their tail: while the tails of European rats are naked with only slightly visible hairs, the tails of woodrats are completely furred with hairs about one-third of an inch long, and predominantly black above and white beneath.
The whiskers are unusually long, typically over 5 centimetres (2 in) in length. There are about fifty whiskers on each side, consisting of a mixture of stiff black hairs and softer white ones.
Read more about this topic: Allegheny Woodrat
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)