Giant Bushy-Tailed Cloud Rat

The Giant Bushy-tailed Cloud Rat or Luzon Bushy-tailed Cloud Rat (Crateromys schadenbergi) is a large, endangered species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is only found in pine and mossy forest at altitudes of 2,000–2,740 metres (6,600–8,990 ft) in the Central Cordillera of Luzon, the Philippines. Relatively little is known about its behavior, but it is nocturnal, mainly arboreal and feeds on various types of vegetation.

It is rarer than the Northern Luzon Giant Cloud Rat, a shorter-haired species that mainly occurs at lower elevations, but locally the Giant Bushy-tailed Cloud Rat remains moderately common in oak-pine forest. The primary threats are hunting and habitat loss.

The appearance of the Giant Bushy-tailed Cloud Rat has been described as spectacular, and it appears to be an equivalent of large tropical tree squirrels, which are not found in Luzon. It weighs 1.35–1.5 kilograms (3.0–3.3 lb) and is 73.5–76 centimetres (28.9–30 in) long. The very long, soft fur, which also covers the tail, is typically all black, but some individuals have white patches.

Famous quotes containing the words giant, cloud and/or rat:

    The point of the dragonfly’s terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows, is not that it all fits together like clockwork--for it doesn’t ... but that it all flows so freely wild, like the creek, that it all surges in such a free, finged tangle. Freedom is the world’s water and weather, the world’s nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: and the creator loves pizzazz.
    Annie Dillard (b. 1945)

    Hast ‘ou fashioned so airy a mood
    To draw up leaf from the root?
    Hast ‘ou found a cloud so light
    As seemed neither mist nor shade?
    Ezra Pound (1885–1972)

    It is restful, tragedy, because one knows that there is no more lousy hope left. You know you’re caught, caught at last like a rat with all the world on its back. And the only thing left to do is shout—not moan, or complain, but yell out at the top of your voice whatever it was you had to say. What you’ve never said before. What perhaps you don’t even know till now.
    Jean Anouilh (1910–1987)