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Identification history
| Rattus rattus | 5 Mar 2025 | CarbonAI | ||
| Mastacomys fuscus | 5 Mar 2025 | KellyP |
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User's notes
small family group, grazing in a suburban backyard in the ACT
3 comments
KellyP
wrote:
5 Mar 2025
Hi - Dear moderators - I was very close to these creatures, I have had pet rats and seen rattus rattus before in different settings, including in traps - these are not rattus rattus, they aren't big enough and the body, back leg shape and eyes are different. I have video as well - and they don't behave like a feral rat. They were also too large to be house mice and the ears are wrong. They look like the images on this site - hence my suggested identification.
DonFletcher
wrote:
5 Mar 2025
Hi @KellyP, thank you for the record. Did you consider juvenile Rattus rattus?
It would be lovely indeed to find a native species in a Canberra garden but to convince a moderator that a Rattus in the Canberra suburbs is a native species you would need very strong evidence. I think it would be the first ever. Mastacomys has very specific habitat requirements and has not been recorded in lowland areas (except during the last ice age). Rattus fuscipes does not penetrate suburbs anywhere, and must have disappeared long ago from the ACT lowands. If the video gives a lateral view or a look at the pads on the underside of the rear feet it could help with ID but Nature Mapper only accepts stills.
It would be lovely indeed to find a native species in a Canberra garden but to convince a moderator that a Rattus in the Canberra suburbs is a native species you would need very strong evidence. I think it would be the first ever. Mastacomys has very specific habitat requirements and has not been recorded in lowland areas (except during the last ice age). Rattus fuscipes does not penetrate suburbs anywhere, and must have disappeared long ago from the ACT lowands. If the video gives a lateral view or a look at the pads on the underside of the rear feet it could help with ID but Nature Mapper only accepts stills.
KellyP
wrote:
Yesterday
Hi @DonFletcher - thanks for your helpful response. I guess its possible they are juvenile Rattus rattus, but they don't look or behave like baby rats (my husband concurs) - but if they continue to hang around I will try to get more picks/video to see if I can get the underside of the rear feet and also see if they get bigger. When we were still feeding parrots (I know, not good, we don't do it now), the same rodents would come down from our trees and eat in the early evening - they looked the same as these ones vs the real rats we sometimes get in the shed.
Sighting information
- 4 Abundance
- KellyP Recorded by
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Collections
KellyP NatureMapr Canberra & Southern Tablelands Latest Rats Rodents Mammals
Additional information
- Unknown Gender
- Dependent young Breeding behaviour
- Alive / healthy Animal health
Record quality
- Images or audio
- More than one media file
- Verified by an expert moderator
- Nearby sighting(s) of same species
- GPS evidence of location
- Description
- Additional attributes
