The hispid cotton rat (Sigmodon hispidus) is a rodent species long thought to occur in parts of South America, Central America, and southern North America. However, recent taxonomic revisions, based on mitochondrial DNA sequence data, have split this widely distributed species into three separate species (S. hispidus, S. toltecus, and S. hirsutus). Carroll et al. (2004) indicate that the southern edge of the S. hispidus distribution is likely near the Rio Grande River where it meets the northern distribution of S. toltecus (formerly S. h. toltecus). The range of S. toltecus extends from northern Mexico south into Chiapas where it occurs in sympatry with S. hirsutus (formerly S. h. hirsutus). They have been used as laboratory animals.
Read more about Hispid Cotton Rat: Taxonomy, Distribution, Plant Communities, Timing of Major Life Events, Habitat, Cover Requirements, Food Habits, Predators
Famous quotes containing the words cotton and/or rat:
“We are constituted a good deal like chickens, which, taken from the hen, and put in a basket of cotton in the chimney-corner, will often peep till they die, nevertheless; but if you put in a book, or anything heavy, which will press down the cotton, and feel like the hen, they go to sleep directly.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.”
—Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)