Brown rat

Description

Brown rats are large, strongly built rats with an angular skull, blunt snout and thick tail, the length of which is normally less than the snout-vent length. The snout-vent length is 18-26 cm, the tail length 14-21 cm and the length of the hind foot 38-45 mm. The tail has 163-205 scale rings. The ears are round and small with a length of 17-23 mm; when folded forward they reach at most the posterior edge of the eye. Sexually mature animals weight about 170-350 g.

Depending on age, the coat is dirty grey-brown on top, reddish brown-grey to dark brown-black, the underpart grey-white. Upperpart and underpart colouration are not sharply separated. Rarely monochrome black animals occur. The tail is bicoloured, greyish brown above and lighter underparts.

Habitat

In their original range in north-east Asia, brown rats inhabit forests and bushy terrain. However, introduced populations are mainly restricted to human settlements, inhabiting drains, rubbish dumps, cellars, warehouses, stables, farms and similar habitats, very often near water. In Europe, the species also inhabits semi-natural habitats, especially water margins with dense vegetation and seashores, especially around river mouths.

The text is a translation of an excerpt from Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderratte). On wikipedia the text is available under a „Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike“ licence. Status: 25 August 2021