Timing of Major Life Events
The white-throated woodrat is a small rodent measuring an average of 12.9 inches (32.8 cm) and weighing an average of 188 g for females and 224 g for males. With the exception of lactating females, white-throated woodrats are solitary and occupy separate houses. They are primarily nocturnal and are active year-round. According to Brown and Zeng, maximum longevity for the white-throated woodrat is 45 months, and according to Newton, maximum longevity is 72 months.
The mating season of white-throated woodrats varies across their range. In Arizona, the mating season is from January to August. In Big Bend National Park, Texas, mating occurs at least from January to November and may occur year-round. In California, the mating season is in February and March, according to Rainey, and in March, April, and possibly May, according to Schwartz and Bleich. The mating system of the white-throated woodrat is polygynous.
Gestation for white-throated woodrats lasts 37 to 38 days, and young are most often born in spring and early summer. In Arizona, mean litter sizes were 1.95 young/litter (n=93 litters) and 2.5 young/litter (n=27 litters).
Young white-throated woodrats are weaned 62 to 72 days after birth and reach sexual maturity 166 to 176 days after birth. Weaning and sexual maturity of the subspecies Neotoma albigula venusta in western Arizona, Sonora, and Baja California occur earlier: young are weaned between 27 and 40 days, and reach sexual maturity 80 to 87 days after birth. In Joshua Tree National Monument, California, young white-throated woodrats establish their own dens by August and September, several months after birth.
Descriptions of the home home range of the white-throated woodrat are lacking. The home range of 1 immature female white-throated woodrat on the Coconino National Forest, Arizona, was 47,760 ft² (4,437 m²).
White-throated woodrat density may be governed by the number of suitable plants available for shelter, food, and water. In Joshua Tree National Monument, there was a significant (P<0.001) positive relationship between white-throated woodrat density and teddybear cholla density, which provided shelter, food, and water. In the Mesilla Valley of southern New Mexico, white-throated woodrat density was more dependent on plants that provided sufficient water and food than on plants that provided shelter.
Read more about this topic: White-Throated Woodrat
Famous quotes containing the words timing, major, life and/or events:
“A great man always considers the timing before he acts.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Self-centeredness is a natural outgrowth of one of the toddler’s major concerns: What is me and what is mine...? This is why most toddlers are incapable of sharing ... to a toddler, what’s his is what he can get his hands on.... When something is taken away from him, he feels as though a piece of him—an integral piece—is being torn from him.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)
“The great end of life is not knowledge, but action. What men need is as much knowledge as they can assimilate and organize into a basis for action; give them more and it may become injurious. One knows people who are as heavy and stupid from undigested learning as other are from over-fulness of meat and drink.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“When the world was half a thousand years younger all events had much sharper outlines than now. The distance between sadness and joy, between good and bad fortune, seemed to be much greater than for us; every experience had that degree of directness and absoluteness which joy and sadness still have in the mind of a child”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)